Nebraska-Kearney 2 Wayne State 1
Nebraska-Kearney's Morgan Abert scored on a 30-yard kick with just 3:40 left in the game to give the host Lopers a 2-1 win over Wayne State College in the women's soccer opener for both teams played Thursday evening in Kearney. The game, the first-ever for UNK women's soccer, drew an NCAA Division II record crowd of 3,227 fans, easily topping the old mark of 2,004 fans when Dallas Baptist played at Central Oklahoma in 2007.
The Wildcats opened the scoring near the 22nd minute when junior forward Tiffani Kellerman scored on a corner kick that hit a UNK defender at 21:58 to give Wayne State an early 1-0 lead. UNK responded just over 10:00 later when Abert scored her first goal of the night off a corner kick on a header to even the contest at 1-1 at the 32:27 mark. The scored remained the same until the 86th minute when Abert struck again for her second goal of the game to give Nebraska-Kearney the 2-1 win.
UNK held a slight 6-5 edge in shots over the Wildcats. Junior goalkeeper Emily Walker had two saves for WSC while playing all 90 minutes in net. The Lopers had a 5-4 advantage in corner kicks over the Wildcats in the tightly contested game.
Wayne State will be in action again Friday afternoon in Kearney, taking on Mesa State of Colorado in a 5:30 p.m. contest.
