UIC Athletics

The bounces went Milwaukee's way early, and the Panthers added on in a late flurry to defeat UIC, 5-0 Sunday afternoon.

David Nikolic's Summary
"We set the team up right.  We tried to neutralize some of their strengths, and I think in the first half we did.  In the second half, they were more adventurous, but we held our own and got a little bit of momentum and possession." 

Turning Points

• Milwaukee scored the only first-half goal via a 26^th-minute corner kick that went off Maggy Henschler's head, and then off the head of a Flames defender on the goal line and into the net.
• The Panthers doubled their lead when a shot from Mackenzie Schill tipped off Lena Kurz' hands, to the post, and over the line.
• The league leaders scored three more goals in a six-minute span late in the match to put the affair out of reach.

Match Details
For over 70 minutes, UIC played Milwaukee fairly evenly, with only a couple of bad bounces accounting for the Panthers' 2-0 lead.  Lena Kurz was active in interrupting plays in the box and racked up six saves.  But as much as the Flames countered Milwaukee's advances, the same was true in reverse.  Connections deep in the final third were hard to come by, and the team could offer only six shots after carrying play in the opening minutes.

"We had an early chance when Kaitlyn [Montague] took one that the keeper pushed off the crossbar," Nikolic observed.  "We had the first corner of the game but didn't take advantage.  If we don't finish those opportunities, that's what's going to happen.  They have a really good team and we have to learn from it."

UIC had a 6-3 advantage in corner kicks.  One of them, in the second half when they only trailed 1-0, led to shots by Yulexi Diaz and Brielle Gomez, the latter of which forced a save.  The team's next best chances from the corner were an attempted connection across the goal face, and a ball to an open shooter above the box.  Neither of those situations, however, presented any danger to Elaina LaMacchia's net.  "We knew we weren't going to get a lot of chances and that we would have to scrape for what we got," Nikolic acknowledged.

Milwaukee struck first on a corner kick, served beyond the far post and then headed back to the goal mouth.  The header had enough angle to make it into the net, and though a Flame was in good position to make the team save, the bounce off her head went in the wrong direction.  Kurz was in place to dive and get both hands on a shot that was taken from deep in the corner in the 72^nd minute, but ultimately did not get enough of the ball to stop it from continuing past her, hitting the post, and bouncing into the net.

Sara Sanabria relieved Kurz for the last 15 minutes.  A trio of well-struck shots made life difficult for her and accounted for the final margin.

Kaitlyn Montague had a team-high three shots, and one of UIC's two shots on goal.  Diaz played the full 90 minutes in her return to the starting lineup.  Grace Haines and Jelena Zbiljic were the only other players to go the distance.

The Flames will head east for a Thursday night match at Cleveland State.