Box Score
Photo Gallery

DULUTH, Minn. – The St. Scholastica women's soccer team allowed their first goal in over 11 games on Tuesday, but still rallied to score two unanswered goals to defeat the University of Wisconsin-River Falls 2-1 at Saints Field.

For the third straight year, the Saints and Falcons battled for the Chalice. The Saints won it in 2009 with an overtime goal and the Falcons took it last year after winning in penalty kicks after a 2-2 tie.

The Falcons controlled play early, having one near goal three minutes into the contest, but Megan McCarthy (Woodbury, Minn./Hill-Murray HS) saved the day and cleared the ball before it crossed the goal line. However, the Falcons kept the pressure on and Eryn Lansverk scored 14 minutes in to give River Falls the 1-0 lead.

The goal was the first allowed by the Saints since September 11th. In game time, the shutout streak lasted 1,041 minutes and 14 seconds.

The Saints then started to pickup their play up at the end of the first half and were rewarded for it as in the 41st minute on a Claire Lubansky (Chaska, Minn./Chaska HS) throw in, the ball was flicked forward nicely by Lauryn Wilson (Fargo, N.D./Fargo South HS) and Kelsey Kehtel (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) charged in and beat the 'keeper near post for her team-high 15th goal of the season to tie the game going into halftime.

CSS kept the momentum going at the start of the second half as Kehtel had another scoring chance, but Falcon goalkeeper Rachel Thompson turned her away. Just moments later Casey Mitchell (St. Cloud, Minn./St. Cloud Tech) had a header attempt in front the net, but it went just wide of the post.

Prior to today, the Saints and Falcons had gone into overtime in five of the seven previous meetings. It looked like we were headed that way again this afternoon. However, with exactly three minutes left off of a Joey Moore (Duluth, Minn./Duluth East HS) corner kick, Shannon Carlson (Woodbury, Minn./Woodbury HS) struck the ball in front of the net that slightly deflected off a River Falls player and into the net to give the Saints the 2-1 lead. CSS held on from there to win the Chalice back by a score of 2-1.

Bailey Mahlum (Bismarck, N.D./Bismarck HS) made six saves, including a sprawling save in the second half, to earn her fifth win of the season. Thompson had four saves in the loss for UWRF. The Falcons (6-13-0) outshot the Saints 13-12 in the contest.

The Saints (12-4-1) will wrap up the regular season this weekend when they host Crown College for Senior Day on Friday at 1:30 p.m. Then a time and location change to Saturday's regular season finale against Northwestern College. The game will now begin at 4 p.m. and be played at UMD's Malosky Stadium. All of the action can be seen live on GameCentral at csssaints.com.