Purdue Outlasts Indiana 1-0
November 06, 2003 | Women's Soccer
The second game of the 2003 Big Ten Women's Soccer Tournament paired No. 3 Purdue with its intrastate arch-rival, Indiana. The sixth-seeded Hoosiers fell shy of upsetting the Boilermakers, 1-0, at the McClimon Sports Complex on the campus of the University of Wisconsin Thursday.
With the win, Purdue (12-4-3, 7-2-2) moves into the second round semifinal match and will face No. 2 Illinois, which took care of Michigan State, 2-0, in the Tournament's first game. Indiana finishes the season 8-10-1 overall and 4-6-1 in conference play.
The opening round win duplicates last year's performance for Purdue as the Boilermakers dropped Indiana in the first round of the 2002 Big Ten Tournament, 1-0.
Purdue is now 6-1 all-time against the Hoosiers, with all seven matches being decided by one goal.
Indiana stormed out of the gate early with an impressive offensive attack that appeared to have caught Purdue by surprise, as the ball was played mostly in Boilermaker territory. Emily Hotz and first-team All-Big Ten selection, Kim Grodek, led the Hoosiers early, forcing many balls into the Purdue box, keeping PU keeper Lauren Mason active.
Purdue regrouped quickly, however, as fellow first-teamer, Annette Kent, blasted a shot at the Indiana goal at the 18:30 mark. The shot soared above the hands of Shaunna Daugherty and caught the bottom of the crossbar. The ball dropped straight down and nearly crossed the goal line before it was cleared by the Hoosiers.
Strangely enough, Purdue fired an identical shot into the box some 20 minutes later, but this time the ball bounced the Boilermakers way and Courtney Coppedge was there to clean up. The shot by Coppedge careened of the crossbar once again, but came directly back to her, where she then found nothing but an open net, giving the Boilermakers the 1-0 lead. The goal was Coppedge's seventh of the season and the 19th of her career.
The second half was full of more intense action as the Hoosiers stormed out of the gates just as they did in the first stanza. Freshman Megan Pipkens led the attack in the second half, hustling on both ends of the field in an attempt to create opportunities for Indiana.
In fact, with time winding down in the final moments of Indiana 's season, Pipkens appeared to catch a second, third and fourth wind, as she blew past three Purdue defenders and drew and one-on-one shootout with Mason. As Pipkens charged, Mason made perhaps the play of the game, reaching out in full extension and stopping the drive by Pipkens who was attempting to sidestep around the Purdue goalie.
The story of the game though was the offensive contributions of both Coppedge and Kent. In fact, when Purdue met Indiana earlier this season, it was Coppedge and Kent again who contributed to the win. The Purdue duo each scored a goal in the Boilermakers' 2-1 victory in Bloomington.
Purdue now looks to battle No. 2 seed Illinois tomorrow for the right to vie for the Big Ten Tournament Championship on Sunday. In their lone meeting of the season, Illinois and Purdue tied at 1-1 in West Lafayette on Oct. 19.
Recap courtesy of Big Ten Conference (www.bigten.org)
