Valparaiso (4-8-3, 1-4-1 MVC)
Thursday, Oct. 25 - Indiana State (6-8-3, 0-5-1 MVC) - 4 p.m.
This Week in Valpo Soccer: The Valparaiso University women’s soccer team closes out the 2018 season on Thursday afternoon on Brown Field, as Valpo hosts Indiana State in the season finale for both sides.
Previously: Valpo dropped a pair of matches last week as it was eliminated from contention for a berth in the MVC Tournament. The Brown and Gold fell at home to Loyola, 2-0, before going on the road to UNI and dropping a 3-0 decision on an extremely windy afternoon Saturday.
Following the Brown and Gold: Thursday afternoon’s match will be broadcast live on ESPN3.. Live stats will be available as well, with links for all the live coverage available via ValpoAthletics.com.
Head Coach John Marovich: The 2014 Horizon League Coach of the Year, John Marovich holds an 95-80-30 (.537) record both overall and with Valpo in his 11th season at the helm of the Brown and Gold. Just the third head coach in program history, Marovich holds Valpo’s all-time records for victories and winning percentage.
Series Notes: Valpo owns an 8-2-2 advantage in the all-time series against Indiana State. The two squads met in non-conference play every season from 2000 through 2010. Last season, the series resumed as Valpo joined the MVC. Valpo earned a 2-1 victory in Terre Haute, with Cory Griffith notching both goals - the latter coming in the 86th minute to decide the fixture.
Stonewalled: Valpo pelted 12 shots on goal at UNI on Saturday afternoon, turning the game in the final 20 minutes of the first half and taking advantage of a 30 MPH wind at its back in the second half. But Valpo was unable to find the back of the net, falling 3-0. It was the most shots on goal Valpo has had in a single match without scoring since tallying 12 shots on frame in the opening round of the Horizon League Tournament against Youngstown State on Oct. 29, 2008 - a match the Crusaders would draw 0-0 before failing to advance on penalties.
Among the Best: Senior forward Cory Griffith closes out her Valpo career on Thursday and will go down as one of the most prolific attackers in program history. Griffith will finish her career atop Valpo’s charts in match-winning goals (11), second in goals (27) and third in points (60).
Multiple Match-Winners: Senior Ava Porlier ranks second on the team with three goals this year, and all three of them have been key tallies. Porlier tallied the match-winning goals in Valpo’s wins over Green Bay and IUPUI - both of which came in the final 10 minutes of regulation. She also scored Valpo’s lone goal in its 1-1 draw with Missouri State in MVC action.
The Record-Setting Performance: Senior Cory Griffith broke Valpo’s single-match record by scoring an NCAA D-I season-high four goals in the win over Robert Morris, carrying Valpo to a 4-2 victory. She scored all four of her goals in a 28-minute stretch spanning the two halves, netting a first-half perfect hat trick before closing out her scoring with a 48th-minute goal. Griffith, who is the only player in Valpo history with multiple hat tricks during her career and also broke the program’s single-match record for points, now owns Valpo’s career match-winning goals record with 11.
Bringing in the Honors: With her record-setting performance against Robert Morris came a pair of accolades for Griffith. She was named the MVC Offensive Player of the Week - her first weekly award from a league office since being named Horizon League Offensive Player of the Week on Oct. 31, 2016. Griffith was also named to the Top Drawer Soccer National Team of the Week, the first Valpo player to be represented on the 11-player weekly squad since the website’s inception. Sophomore goalkeeper Kezia Gesell joined Griffith as a weekly award winner on Oct. 15, bringing in MVC Defensive Player of the Week accolades following a 12-save shutout and one goal allowed over 200 minutes of action.
Iron Woman: Junior Ali Quillen continued her consecutive minutes played streak last week, going all 180 minutes over the matches against Loyola and UNI. Quillen has now played 1,418 minutes this season and has not come off the park in any of Valpo’s 15 matches. Quillen has now gone the distance in 49 of 53 career matches and is currently on a streak of 2,055 consecutive minutes played - nearing her streak of 2,175 consecutive matches which spanned her freshman and sophomore seasons (Aug. 28, 2016 at Loyola-Sept. 15, 2017 at Western Michigan).
Playing the Whole Season: If she goes the full 90+ minutes on Thursday, Quillen will become the first Valpo player to not come off the field for an entire season since Sydney Galvez-Daley played every minute between the posts for Valpo in its 2014 Horizon League championship season. The last Valpo field player to not sub out for an entire year was Janine Lytle in 2012.
