ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Concordia-St. Paul soccer team (5-5, 4-3 NSIC) will look to continue their winning ways this weekend as they return home to play host to U-Mary (1-7-1, 1-6 NSIC) on Saturday and Minot State (9-1, 7-0 NSIC) on Sunday.
The Golden Bears return to St. Paul after an impressive road trip in which CSP won three of four games. Overall, Concordia enters the weekend with four wins in their last five meetings to surge into a tie for fifth place in the NSIC.
This past weekend, Concordia scored twice early in the second half to gain the decisive advantage in a 2-1 win at Northern State on Saturday before rolling to a 5-0 win over MSU Moorhead on Sunday. Sunday's win marked the largest margin of victory in NSIC play since a 5-0 win at Minnesota Crookston back on October 7th, 2007. The last time CSP scored five goals in a league game came back on September 27th, 2009 in a 5-1 win against Southwest Minnesota State.
While Concordia put together a pair of impressive team performances with many different players stepping up and playing a big role, the duo of
Jessica Bianchi and
Emma Gartner really shined.
Jessica Bianchi had a career weekend with three goals and two assists as she put up multi-point efforts in each match. After netting the first goal of the game and assisting on the game-winner on Saturday, Bianchi matched a career-best with two goals and five points against the Dragons on Sunday. With the big weekend, the senior moved to sixth in the league in points (14), 10
th in the league in goals (5) and tied for second in assists (4).
Emma Gartner continued her strong play in recent weeks as she allowed just one goal on the weekend and picked up her third shutout in the last five games. Gartner nearly picked up the shutout against Northern State on Saturday as she held the Wolves off the board until the 84
th minute, making three saves, before putting up a season-best nine saves in the 5-0 shutout win over the Dragons.
The Golden Bears will be looking to claim their first win over U-Mary in 14 tries as the Marauders have gone 12-0-1 in 13 previous meetings against CSP. After playing to a 1-1 tie back in 2009, U-Mary has won the last five meetings. Last season, the Marauders won 1-0 in overtime in Bismarck.
The Marauders have had a tough start to the season as their only win on the year came two weekends ago in a 2-1 win at SMSU. Last weekend, they were swept by Upper Iowa and Winona at home.
Concordia also enters the weekend winless in three previous meetings with Minot State as the Beavers picked up a pair of 2-1 wins in the first two meetings before winning 3-0 in Minot last year.
Minot State has opened the conference season red hot with seven consecutive wins to begin NSIC play. The Beavers swept Winona State and Upper Iowa last weekend.
Live video and live stats will be available for both games this weekend at the links above.
