Erica Hubert's Late Goal Propels BGSU Over Buffalo, 2-1

Sunday, October 4

Bowling Green, Ohio

1:00 p.m.

Bowling Green State University

6-5-1, 2-2-0MAC

Buffalo

6-5-1, 2-2-0MAC

Buffalo

Bowling Green

October 04, 2015 | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: By Alexx Klein, BGSU Athletic Communications

Box Score (PDF)
Box Score (HTML)
Season Stats (PDF)
Season Stats (HTML)
Post game interview: Lindsay Basalyga
Post game interview: Kara Ross
Post game interview: Lauren Cadel

Bowling Green, Ohio – The Bowling Green State University women's soccer team defeated Buffalo in dramatic fashion Sunday afternoon at Cochrane Stadium. The Falcons won 2-1 against the defending Mid-American Conference champions on a late goal scored by redshirt freshman Erica Hubert.

The goal was Hubert's seventh of the season, which is a team-high for BGSU. The last time a Falcon player has scored seven or more goals in a season was in 2010 when Alyssa Zuccaro recorded eight. Hubert's seven goals through 12 games ties the quickest a player has recorded seven goals in a season since 2004.

"I saw resiliency, a little bit of guts and belief in our process," said head coach Lindsay Basalyga. "We weathered the storm in the second half. Buffalo put us under a lot of pressure, but we capitalized on our moments and our players did not give up on the game. The fact that we walked away with a win with a minute left against the defending MAC champs, it's safe to say we are walking away with a little more confidence than we came in with."

In the 89th minute of regulation, Kara Ross found Hubert outside of the box, where Hubert's shot bounced over the head of Buffalo goalkeeper Laura Dougall and rolled into the back of the net to give the Falcons a 2-1 advantage with time winding down.

Early in the second period, the UB attack pressured the Falcon back line, as Carissima Cutrona fired off two shots in one minute. Her first shot appeared to get passed BGSU goalkeeper Lauren Cadel, but Cadel spun around and knocked the attempt away just before it crossed the left side goal line.

"Lauren has been so sharp," added Basalyga. "We are finally seeing a back line that is grinding to help her and reward her. Earlier in the season I think she was coming up with big saves, but we weren't rewarding her work. She makes game-winning saves to keep us in games so she has been fantastic."

Just over two minutes later, Ross's shot from the left side of the box snuck passed Dougall for the first score of the match to put the Falcons up 1-0. The assist was awarded to Skylar Fleak for her third of the season.

"It was a great ball in by Skylar and the goal gave us some confidence, energy and excitement going into the rest of the half," said Ross.

Later in the second half down one goal, Buffalo's Cutrona buried a shot into the back of the Falcon net from 15 yards out to tie the contest 1-1 in the 80th minute.

The first half featured a relatively even match, with BGSU holding a slight edge in shots, 8-6. The Falcons brought the pressure early, as Fleak's header missed wide left of the goal one minute into play. Hubert beat the UB defense in the ninth minute, but her one-on-one shot attempt was saved by Dougall. BGSU fired off four consecutive shots on attempts by Mikaela Couch, Madison Schupbach and Paige Amodio. The Bulls found their offensive rhythm halfway through the opening period, as they were able to get four shots off of their own in a five-minute span. The teams traded shots for the remaining 15 minutes of play.

Cadel finished the game with five saves in 90 minutes of play.

"The back line was very disciplined," said Cadel. "We just have to keep competing this week in practice. This goes to show what not giving up on a game can do for you, so just continuing on with that throughout the week and we'll be good to go for Friday."

The Buffalo defense held Bowling Green to just three shots in the second half, two of which were goals for the Falcons. The Bulls finished with 23 shots to BGSU's 11 in the match.

The win for BGSU moves the Falcons to 6-5-1 overall and 2-2-0 in the conference, while the loss for the Bulls drops them to an identical record of 6-5-1, 2-2-0. The last time the Orange and Brown held a .500 mark in the MAC was in 2010 when the team opened the conference schedule with a 2-2 record.

"We're getting after it tomorrow. This is a journey. We don't want to get too hung up on one specific result. There are going to moments in this game that we can take away that will make us better heading into next weekend."

BGSU will play Toledo on the road this coming Friday in the battle of I-75, followed by an away game at Central Michigan on Oct. 11.