Box Score Oct. 26, 2013 – The Concordia University Chicago women's soccer team hosted the Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons on an overcast day in River Forest. It was a momentous day for the Cougars as they were fighting to maintain an unbeaten home record for the first time in program history. After a tough 110 minutes of NACC soccer the final score was 0-0 as the Cougars wrapped up a 5-0-2 record at home.

"It is always tough to battle a rival like Concordia-Wisconsin," said head coach Thomas Goines. "They are a perennial favorite to win conference and it is a measuring stick game for our program. We came out and were able to manage our emotions and put in a consistent effort throughout the entire game. I think the freshmen are beginning to understand what it means to play in rivalry games."

In the first half, the Falcons had the advantage in the run of play as the Cougars missed the final connection to goal on a number of occasions. The dominate physical play of freshman Alisha Johnson (Coal City, IL/H.S.) on the right side created numerous dangerous situations in front of the Falcons' goal. She terrorized the Falcons' left backs the entire day with one of her best performances of the season. Annie Rockert (Kankakee, IL/Herscher) and Christina Kiotis (Park Ridge, IL/Maine South) patrolled in front of the back line and stymied the Falcons' attacks through immediately shutting down their midfield runs. The toughest assignment of the day may have been for Natalie Weinhold (St Peters, MO/Lutheran St. Charles) as she battled a physically taller opponent from the Falcons.

In the second half, the Cougars had the advantage. There were several scrums in front of the Falcons' goal where last ditch defending by the visitors saved the day. Christine Saucedo (Brookfield, IL/Lyons Township) took the ball up the field and created mismatches from her center back position as did Haley Graner (Waukesha, WI/Waukesha West).

Multiple scoring opportunities and general mayhem in the second half and overtime were created by Nikki Anderson (Montgomery, IL/Oswego) as she played well in harassing and dispossessing defenders in possession. Another stellar performance on the day was Stephanie Brown (Streamwood, IL/Streamwood) at outside back as she worked against one of the most skilled forwards in the NACC throughout the day.

Coach Goines said, "It is great to defend our house by being unbeaten at home for an entire season for the first time. I was proud of the effort we put in today as we met one of our team objectives for the season. We will take a day to celebrate the team achievement and then we get back to business in preparing for a very tough opponent in Dominican next Wednesday that affects our conference tournament seeding."

The record for the team for ties in season was three set in 2002. The Cougars now have four ties on the 2013 season with at least two games remaining.

CUC keeper Callie Hasslebring (Houston, TX/Cypress Ridge) had her seventh shutout of the season with 12 saves. Hasslebring's upper 90 reaction save in the 76^th minute to preserve the shutout may end up being the save of the season. The combined CUW keepers made five saves in Saturday's match.

The Cougars will play their final regular season game at Dominican in River Forest on Wednesday at 3:00. The game is very important to the seeding in the NACC tournament.
The first round of the NACC tournament takes place on Sunday, Nov. 3 with opponent, location and time based on final conference standings.