Vikings Battle Panthers to a Draw

SALEM, Mass. -- The Vikings and the Panthers ended up in a 1-1 draw at Alumni Field on Wednesday evening. Salem State's season now stands at 0-2-1 Plymouth State goes to 0-1-2.  

Before the game Coach Wood talked about what it would take to beat the Panthers. "It is always competitive against Plymouth and I think it is a long standing rivaly as well. I think it is us keeping it, keeping the ball, evaluating possession, I think we need to show the ability to do that in big moments."    

The Vikings started off attacking the Panthers and putting pressure on the Panthers' defense. Despite the Vikings strong offense, it was Plymouth State, who struck first as Ashley Plante (Concord, N.H.) set up her teammate Kaliana Palhof (Loudon, N.H.) for a goal at 13:38.   

Brenna Paquette (Hudson, N.H.) talked after the game about how the team was going to bounce back after trailing by one score early. "Our mindset is to keep pushing and we knew that we can connect, we can run passes and there was a lot of time left."  

Salem State was looking to tie the game 20:16 into the first half. Huda Ngoynkulu (Sheffield, Mass) passed to an open Savannah Scrodin (Mount Abaham, Vt.), but keeper Drea Oswell (Stafford Springs, Conn.) denied Scrodin's shot and the scored remained 1-0 in favor of the Panthers.

Five minutes later goalie Lily Pfefferle (St. Paul, Minn.) made two highlight saves to keep the Panthers at bay.  

Coach Wood talked about her goalie performance "I think we are in these early games against really explosive attacking teams like WPI and UMass [Dartmouth] and she made 30 saves and she makes it look easy. Sometimes games like this are even harder when you are not involved the whole time. When it's like two or three shots where they are really high quality, that part of Lily's game has grown. She kept us in the game for sure."  

Later, Scrodin was one-on-one with the goalie as it was a broken play, but Oswell denied the Vermont native's attempt to tie the game 33:58 into the first half.  

Salem State was down by one at the break, arguably their best half of the year so far this season. The Vikings had five shots on goal while Panthers had seven.  

Coach Wood talked about the team's strong first half. "I agree. My assistant coach Jacqueline (Hughes) and I said that I think it is important for the team to understand that if you playing your best first half, it isn't enough. It is a 90-minute game and we have to continue to avoid those mistake on the breakouts, but they responded very well. They are exhausted, but they didn't look tired, so I agree I think this was their best effort for sure."   

Paquette tied the game thanks to an 18-footer as the crowd went into a frenzy at Alumni Field. The time of the goal was 52:26.  

Paquette talked about her score after the game. "I knew I could get the ball in the middle and then I just looked up and the ball was in front of me, so I just shot it."  

The Vikings will hit the road as they will face Clark University this upcoming Saturday. Game time is 11:00 a.m.