La Plume, PA – Holding a 2-0 halftime of Tuesday afternoon's women's soccer season opener at Keystone College, visiting DeSales University pulled away with five second half goals to notch a 7-0 victory despite an outstanding, 15-save performance from Keystone goalkeeper
Sarah Heintz (Glenside, PA/Abington).
DeSales (1-0) pressured early, firing off six shots over the opening 10 minutes of play, but Heintz kept the Bulldogs off the board with several outstanding saves including an acrobatic stop to deny the visitors on a breakaway opportunity.
The visitors finally solved Heintz in the 16
th minute when Danni Engwall took a pass from Jamie Barna and ripped a shot from 16 yards out the tucked in the side-netting just inside the far post. Heintz continued to stifle chance after chance for DeSales until the 38
th minute when Jess Wetherhold's long-range shot beat Heintz over the top to give the Bulldogs a 2-0 advantage.
The visitors held the two-goal advantage at the halftime break while Heintz's 10 first-half saves kept Keystone (0-1) in the contest heading into the second stanza.
After several more sensational saves from Heintz, DeSales stretched their lead to 3-0 in the 61
st minute as Erin Crystal was able to push a close-range shot just over the goal line on a corner kick served in by Engwall. Engwall and Wetherhold then scored goals separated by less than a minute in the 69
th and 70
th minutes to open up a five-goal cushion.
The Bulldogs netted their sixth goal of the day in the 82
nd minute as Sydney Gandy one-touched home a cross from Lauren Yost before Brooke Terplan knocked a rebound shot into an empty net with just under six minutes left to play to close out the scoring.
For the game, DeSales outshot Keystone by a 33-2 margin and held a 12-1 advantage in corner kicks.
Bulldogs goalkeeper Haley Jacobs notched the shutout win without being forced to make a save.
Nina Carbonaro (Middlesex, NJ/Middlesex) and
Gina Carbonaro (Middlesex, NJ/Middlesex) accounted for Keystone's two shots in contest, neither of which found there way on target.
Keystone returns to action on Saturday afternoon with a non-conference game at the Pennsylvania College of Technology starting at 1:00 p.m. in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.