The womens soccer team gets above .500 in Big East wins

Huskies Sweep Big East Weekend

By: Tim Ehrens

Posted: 10/9/06

Needing to reassert their presence in the Big East, the Huskies reeled off two pivotal conference wins this weekend as they beat St. John's Friday, 4-0, and Syracuse Sunday, 2-0.

The Huskies (7-7-1, 4-3-0 Big East) entered the weekend at 2-3-0 in conference play, fresh off back-to-back losses to conference foes Georgetown and No. 17 Villanova. They ended it with two crucial wins and a head of steam heading into next week's monumental home game with undefeated No. 1 Notre Dame.

The wins also preserved UConn's perfect home record as the Huskies are now 5-0-1 at Morrone Stadium.

Four different Huskies scored goals in Friday's 4-0 win over St. John's as the Huskies dominated the Red Storm offensively, out shooting them 23-6. Brittany Tegeler scored her first goal of the season in the 15th minute as she sent a shot off the far post into the Red Storm net.

After scoring two goals in the first half, Elizabeth Eng and Meghan Schnur scored back-to-back goals in the 54th and 55th minutes, respectively, to complete the rout of the Red Storm - second in the Big East standings up until the end of the game.

"This is probably the best effort I've seen all year," said head coach Len Tsantiris. "It was a consistent effort. We kept going forward, creating opportunities, and [we could've scored] eight goals easily because so many shots hit the post."

Red Storm goalkeeper Jamie Beran allowed all four goals, despite having allowed only seven goals all season coming into the game. However, the 17-shot advantage and an 8-2 advantage in corner kicks by UConn ensured a Huskies victory.

"Everybody was going forward - that's what we've worked on all week," Tsantiris said of his team's aggressive play Friday. "We have to do that if we want to be at the level that we are capable of being at."

The Huskies took on Syracuse Sunday, who entered as one of the worst teams in terms of record and statistics in the Big East.

Scoring opportunities were plentiful for the Huskies in the first half, but no goals were scored by either team.

"We did some good things [in the first half] but we weren't consistent in getting the ball and getting good opportunities," Tsantiris said. "We didn't find each other as well as we could have."

Eng scored her second goal of the weekend off an assist by Brittany Taylor to put the Huskies on the board in the 47th minute. Karyn Riviere firmly shut the door on the Orange with a header off a pass from Nikki Cross in the 70th minute. Goalkeeper Stephanie Labbe played the entire game and recorded her first shutout of the year, having to make only one save.

Dominating offensively yet again, the Huskies outshot the Orange, 22-4 and also held the advantage in corner kicks, 8-0.

"Pressure is really the whole thing," Tsantiris said. "I thought we closed them down pretty well and it was a total team effort."

UConn will have a tall task ahead of them this week when they host Big East leader Notre Dame, as well as lowly DePaul, who has yet to win a conference game.

"I don't have to tell them anything - they are playing the No. 1 team in the country," Tsantiris said. "They are familiar with playing Top 10 teams."

UConn, who jumped up to third place in the Big East American Division after this weekend, will play Notre Dame Friday at 7 p.m. at Morrone Stadium.