Women's Soccer Stops Spartans, 3-1
September 29, 2002 | Women's Soccer
Junior Jenny Kundert won the battle of former Madison West Regents Sunday as the Wisconsin women's soccer team beat Michigan State, 3-1, at the McClimon Soccer Complex. Kundert scored two goals, including the game winner against friend and former teammate Stacy Heller.
'I think what we saw today was the potent offense and the movement of the offense,' head coach Dean Duerst said. 'One of the keys was that we kept finding Marisa Brown open and she could feed the forwards.'
The Badgers came out strong in the first half and Brown's play helped lead to the Badgers' first goal. Kundert was also a factor in the first goal of the day, pushing the ball up to redshirt freshman Jessica Ring on the right side. Ring crossed the ball over and hit the low left side of the net for her first goal as a Badger to put UW up 1-0 at 20:48.
Kundert found the back of the net six minutes later with a great move and a perfectly placed shot. Amy Vermeulen landed a ball on the penalty kick line for Kundert which drew out Heller. Kundert dribbled toward Heller one-on-one and popped it to her high right taking her out of the play. Kundert sped to the ball and thread two Michigan State defenders for her fourth goal of the year.
'We needed that from our perspective, mentally,' Duerst said. ''to get ahead of a team and not just by one goal. We 've done that against other teams and it wasn't enough.'
Protecting a 2-0 lead in the second half, Kundert notched her second goal of the game in similar fashion. Kundert sent the ball high over Heller and followed amongst defenders to tap it in from the left side to give the Badgers a 3-0 advantage. Kundert's second multi-goal game of the season gives her a team high five goals on the year.
MSU answered twenty seconds later off the foot of Erin Konheim who put it past UW's keeper Kelly Conway. Heidi Lutz assisted on the play. Conway tallied three saves on the day, while Heller notched five. UW outshot MSU 16-11, while the Badgers' defense worked against four MSU corner kicks. The Badgers' defense and depth, including UW's use of substitutes and senior Lauren Schmidt 's move to sweeper, also frustrated Michigan State.
'[Schmidt] is a leader on this team. She's reading things very well,' Duerst said. 'That opened up the game for us. We took their offense right off the page there in the first half. We definitely rotated our back personnel more today.'
Wisconsin (4-5-2, 1-2-1 Big Ten) continues conference play on the road next weekend. UW faces Illinois Friday at 7 p.m. and Iowa Oct. 6 at 1 p.m.
