Women’s soccer road trip bends South at ND

In what has shaped up to be one of its best starts in school history, the Pitt women’s… In what has shaped up to be one of its best starts in school history, the Pitt women’s soccer team headed into last weekend looking to continue its winning ways.

A week ago, the squad recorded its first conference win with a 4-2 victory over Syracuse. Freshman Ashley Habbel’s four-point performance in that match earned her Big East Rookie of the Week honors.

This weekend, the Panthers were on the road splitting a pair of Big East games. Pitt beat DePaul in Chicago on Friday and lost at Notre Dame on Sunday. The Panthers move to 7-3-2 overall and 2-2-1 in conference play.

Pitt will attempt to tie the school record for season wins Friday when they travel to Milwaukee to play Marquette in another conference game.

Pitt 1, DePaul 0

The Panthers claimed their second conference win of the season on Friday in a hard-fought 1-0 match against DePaul. With the victory, Pitt improved to 7-2-2 overall, 2-1-1 in the Big East, as DePaul fell to 3-7-1 overall.

“We played well in the first half,” Pitt head coach Sue-Moy Chin said on PittsburghPanthers.com. “In the second half, we were really able to control possession. Our defense did an excellent job tonight, they never let down.”

As Coach Chin indicated, the game was all about defense for both teams. Luckily for Pitt, it was able to get on the board early and hold on with stellar defensive play. That lone goal came in the eighth minute of play when freshman Megan Watson redirected a Rachael Vecchio pass past DePaul goalkeeper Cara LaRocca for her first goal of the season and her career.

DePaul did not have many opportunities on net, but did find itself in position to score early in the second half when Kelly DeBaene got a shot off. Freshman goalkeeper Alison Finch deflected the shot, DePaul’s best scoring chance, en route to preserving the shutout for the Panthers. Finch recorded nine saves on a night in which Pitt’s defense was impenetrable.

Pitt 0, Notre Dame 5

As the wins kept coming, Pitt continued to move up in the Big East Conference. Despite the progress, the team is still far from being at the top – a position held by Notre Dame for quite some time. Pitt got its chance to see what it could do against one of the nation’s best teams on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Panthers were not quite up to the task yet, and it showed in their 5-0 defeat.

The Notre Dame women have been nothing less than spectacular in recent seasons. The 2004 National Champions advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals last season for the ninth time in the past 12 seasons. If that wasn’t imposing enough for the Panthers, the Fighting Irish came into their match against Pitt undefeated so far this season.

The nation’s top-ranked team handled the Pitt women on Sunday, and in doing so, remained undefeated at 11-0. Despite the loss, Pitt needs just one more victory this season to tie the school record for season wins (eight, set in 1998).

Notre Dame took the lead in the 13th minute on an own goal by the Panthers. The Fighting Irish scored their last four goals in the second half as Brittany Bock headed in a score, Michele Weissenhofer contributed two goals and Kerri Hanks finished on a through ball. On the other side of the ball, Notre Dame’s exceptional defense held Pitt to one shot all day.