Box Score



Kutztown 2, Gannon 0 (HTML Box Score) | NCAA Regional Rankings
 
ERIE, Pa. – The Kutztown University women's soccer teams' final week of the regular season just keeps getting better. After winning its 10th game of the season on Monday for the 12th straight year, Kutztown worked its way up to eighth in the latest NCAA Atlantic Region rankings, and clinched its spot in the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Tournament on Wednesday afternoon with a 2-0 win at Gannon University.
 
The Golden Bears (11-5, 10-5 PSAC) jumped into this week's regional rankings for the first time this season. Kutztown is gaining momentum at the right time, as the top six teams in the region will advance to the regional tournament.
 
Kutztown scored both of its goals on Wednesday in the first six minutes against a highly-talented team in the Golden Knights (9-6-1, 9-5-1), who are ranked fourth in this week's rankings. The win helps Kutztown dramatically, as its strength of schedule and quality of wins will significantly improve.
 
"Today's game was a back-and-forth battle, and we created a lot of chances in the first 15 minutes," head coach Erik Burstein said. "We executed our game plan and had some great offensive tactics that allowed us to gain the early lead. Credit our defense as well; they remained strong on the back line all afternoon and gave us a great chance to win."
 
The Golden Bears were playing under the mindset of needing a win to clinch a spot in the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season. Not wanting to draw its postseason fate out to the final regular season game on Saturday, Kutztown made it clear that it wanted to take care of business early in the game.
 
"Making the playoffs has become a standard for our program, and we were certainly eyeing the standings to see what we needed to do to control our own fate," Burstein said. "We knew what was at stake today, and I feel it gave us some extra motivation."
 
In the third minute of action, Kutztown was working on its second straight corner kick taken by Megan Frailer (Bel Air, Md./C. Milton Wright). On the second attempt, Diana Malanga (Lavallette, N.J./St. Rose) sent a direct header off the corner kick into the net to give Kutztown the early 1-0 lead.
 
On Kutztown's very next opportunity, Malanga found freshman Alaina Curry (York, Pa./Dallastown Area) for a goal for a 2-0 advantage at the 5:39 mark. It was Curry's fourth goal of the week, following her hat-trick on Monday against Alderson-Broaddus, and her team-leading seventh goal of the season.
 
Senior goalkeeper Alina Rakiewicz (Denver, PA/Cocalico) made six saves in her sixth shutout victory of the season. She faced 14 shots and five corner kicks from Gannon.
 
Rakiewicz and fellow senior Katie Oliveri (Mifflinburg, PA/Mifflinburg) will be honored this coming Saturday, Nov. 2, in Kutztown's regular season finale at Keystone Field against Mercyhurst University beginning at 1 p.m. Kutztown will now focus on earning a victory to give itself a chance at hosting a playoff game next Tuesday, Nov. 5.
 
"As much as we want to win on Saturday to try and earn a home playoff game, we want to win just as much for our two seniors on Senior Day," Burstein said. "We will certainly give our best effort to win for our seniors to make sure they can walk away the right way from their regular season college careers."