Cardinals make lone shot count

Donny Nadeau, SMU Sports Information Office

WINONA, Minn. — To Saint Mary's University women's soccer coach Tony Guinn, it was a perfect way to send off his seniors — and set the 2004 season in the history books.

In the Cardinals' final home game at Ochrymowycz Field Saturday, SMU did what it hadn't done in 10 straight years — defeat two-time defending Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference champion St. Benedict

Amy Cory (Crystal Lake, Ill.) scored with less than eight minutes remaining in regulation off a corner kick from teammate Abbey D'Acquisto (Racine, Wis.) as SMU beat St. Benedict 1-0 — snapping a nine-game winless streak against the Blazers, and giving the Cardinals their first win vs. CSB since a 2-0 triumph on Oct. 29, 1994.

And they did it without three of their regular starters.

"The whole team played outstanding — I'm sure it's one of the biggest wins in a long time for this program," said Guinn, whose team had been outscored by the Blazers 33-2 during that nine-game drought. "We did it without people like Courtney Gibson (Woodbury, Minn.) and Lisa Tlougan (Rochester, Minn.) in our lineup (due to injuries), and that's what impressed me the most.

"Hopefully it was a nice sendoff to our seniors, too."

Despite a scoreless first half, the Cardinals seemed to be facing an uphill climb against the Blazers — who held a 7-0 advantage in shots on goal through the game's first 45 minutes. CSB also had seven first-half corner kicks, while the Cardinals were held to none.

But with 7 minutes, 45 seconds left in regulation, that all changed, as D'Acquisto sent the Cardinals' first corner kick right to Cory, who fired and found the back of the net — not only scoring the game's only goal, but also marking the Cardinals' one and only shot on net for the entire game.

SMU goalie Jennifer Johnson (Racine, Wis.) stopped all 13 shots she faced to earn her first shutout as a Cardinal.

"I can't tell you how great this win is," said Guinn, whose team closes out its season with a pair of road games next week — Wednesday at St. Catherine and Saturday at Hamline. "We've been in a lot of close games, a lot of games in which we played well enough to win but didn't. To get a win like this, against a team as talented as (St. Benedict), it's just awesome — for our seniors, for our team, and for our program."

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