In beating the No. 8 ranked Penn State Nittany Lions 2-1 Sunday, the Wisconsin women’s soccer team scored a major victory for the program on the road.
It was also head coach Paula Wilkins’ homecoming to Penn State, a place where she worked for over 10 years.
Erin Connolly netted two goals and Ella Ottey provided 2 assists to help the Badgers complete a comeback. On the defensive side, Hailey Baumann looked like the stalwart she is, coming up with several clutch plays as centerback. Goalie Drew Stover also played a brilliant game where she only allowed one goal and had six saves, including one penalty shot.
In winning, Wilkins achieved some bragging rights over a school, and coach, she is familiar with. Wilkins was hired to the Nittany Lion’s women’s soccer staff in 1994 and then became the head coach from 2001-2006, leaving in 2007 to take the helm at Wisconsin.
The Penn State women’s soccer program has found great success under head coach Erica Dambach, reaching the NCAA tournament 18 consecutive times and winning the national championship in 2015. She has also had success against Wisconsin during her tenure, going 11-6-1 since 2007.
Wilkins and Dambach go further back in their history, as they recall playing club soccer against each other in the Pennsylvania area in their early teenage years.
With accolade lists including multiple Big Ten titles, Coach of the Year honors and players who went on to the U.S. Women’s National Team, the two coaches feature plenty of accomplishments. But on Sunday, Wilkins got the better of Dambach.
Penn State got off to a quick start which was capitalized by a Kaitlyn MacBean goal, her fourth in her last three Big Ten matches and fifth of the season, around seven minutes in on a cross from Julia Raich. The Nittany Lions got several shots on goal in the first 20 minutes of the first half, but the Badgers came back with a vengeance.
Delaney Cox, who had a great game coming off the bench, played a great ball into an open Erin Connolly to tie the game for Wisconsin. The Badgers controlled possession for the rest of the half through a relentless press and great defense in the midfield. Penn State struggled to play through their midfielders, and when they took their top forwards Aubrey Culpa and Amelia White out, they could not connect on any balls over the top of the defense.
“We started thinking we’re better than we are, and started playing like individuals,” Dambach said about their collapse. “You’re not good enough in this league to play as a bunch of individuals.”
The Badgers struck with the go-ahead goal five minutes into the half, when Connolly scored on a beautiful through ball by Ella Ottey, making the score 2-1 in favor of Wisconsin.
The biggest opportunity in the first 22 minutes of the second half for Penn State occurred when Raich got tripped up by Wisconsin’s Madison Ishaug just inside the 18-yard box, warranting a penalty. Raich took the penalty and shot it middle-left with some pace, but Stover got to it and forced the shot wide. Penn State only got one more shot on goal the rest of the game, showing the resilience of this Badger team.
“We’ve been down before this season and we watch our film and our body language. We talked about how we never want to be the team that looks like we’re down.” Connolly said after the game. “‘There’s nothing left to lose,’ that’s kind of what we said and we went out there, and killed it the rest of the game.”
The Badgers showed a winning formula today that proves they can hold strong against anyone as they enter the meat of their season. This was their third conference game of the year, improving their record to 1-1-1. Wisconsin has eight more conference games to try and capitalize on this major victory against a tough opponent.
The Badgers have another tough test on Sep. 25 at 7 p.m. against the No. 12 Iowa Hawkeyes at home.
