UNI soccer wraps up road trip with first-ever game at Belmont

UNI soccer (10-2-1) at Belmont (2-6-6)

2 p.m. CT | Oct. 8, 2023
Nashville, Tn. | E.S. Rose Park
ESPN+

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa --- UNI soccer concludes its two-match Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) road trip on Sunday at E.S. Rose Park in Nashville, Tennessee against the Belmont Bruins. Despite Sunday marking the fourth all-time meeting between the Panthers and Bruins, UNI has not played a match at Belmont in program history.

The first all-time meeting between the sides came in UNI soccer's inaugural season in 2000. UNI and Belmont met twice last season, the second of which came in a high-stakes matchup in the first round of the 2022 MVC Tournament. That match was played at UIC's Flames Field and the Panthers emerged with a 1-0 double overtime victory after Sophia Balistreri scored the game-winning goal in the 98th minute.

UNI will look to secure another positive result against Belmont and flip the momentum of its road trip after the Panthers suffered a 4-1 loss to Murray State on Thursday. The Racers stormed out to a 3-0 lead inside the opening 30 minutes of the match, a deficit that proved too massive for the Panthers to overcome. After taking a three-goal lead into halftime, the Racers scored their fourth goal of the match in the 51st minute to put any rumblings of a UNI comeback to bed.

Balistreri scored the lone goal of the match for UNI in the 86th minute, drilling a long strike from 25 yards out into the back of the net on an assist from Marissa Gross. The goal marked Balistreri's first goal of the 2023 season and the second goal of her career. Gross, meanwhile, recorded her third assist of the 2023 season. With her goal, Balistreri became the 12th different Panther soccer player to score a goal this season.

The Panthers' three-match shutout streak also came to an end on Thursday. Mary Hardy's goal in the eighth minute snapped a 310-minute shutout streak for the Panther defense, a streak that began during the last 32 minutes of UNI's 2-1 loss to Drake on Sept. 17 and continued across the Panthers' three consecutive shutout victories.

UNI recorded its 89th point of the season on Thursday, putting the Panthers eight points away matching the 2017 squad's program record of 97 points. The Panthers have scored 33 goals so far in 2023 and are two goals away from setting a program record for the most goals scored in a single season in program history.

The Panthers will look to rebound against Belmont who, much like Murray State, has tied a majority of its MVC matches so far this season. The Bruins are 2-6-6 overall and 1-1-4 in MVC play. Belmont's lone loss of conference play came in a 2-0 road loss to Missouri State on Sept. 24, and the Bruins enter Sunday's match on the heels of their first MVC win. Anna Sweeney provided the game-winning goal in the 55th minute as Belmont downed Southern Illinois 1-0 in Carbondale, Illinois on Thursday night. The shutout victory marked the Bruins' third shutout of MVC play.

Maci Pekmezian is Belmont's leading scorer with four goals. Pekmezian picked up MVC Player of the Week on Oct. 3 after scoring in Belmont's 1-1 draw against Illinois State on Sept. 28 and in its 1-1 draw against Evansville on Oct. 1. Sweeney scored her second goal of the season against the Salukis, and she's Belmont's second-leading scorer.

The Bruins have allowed just four goals across six MVC matches thanks in large part to stellar goalkeeping from Sarah Doyle. She has been one of the best goalkeepers in the conference so far this season, and leads the MVC by a significant margin in saves (85) and saves per game (6.07). Doyle has five shutouts so far this season, which is tied with Caitlin Richards for the second-highest total in the MVC.

Sunday is shaping up to be a critical contest as the MVC season nears the final stretch. Entering the weekend, the top seven teams in the MVC standings are separated by just five points. Missouri State is in first place with 12 points and UNI sits in fourth place with nine points. Valparaiso, Murray State and Belmont sit right behind the Panthers in a three-way tie for fifth place with seven points. The Bears do not play on Sunday and, with UNI having played one less game than Missouri State in conference play, Sunday's match against Belmont provides an opportunity for the Panthers to pick up some crucial points.

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