The Panther women’s soccer team recently made the trip out west to Vermillion, S.D., for a matchup against the South Dakota Coyotes. Coming off a 6-0 win last week, the Panthers were looking to keep their momentum alive last Friday as they took on the Coyotes. 

However, the boost they were looking for stayed dormant until the second half of play.

The game started out fairly slow with no scoring throughout the first 45 minutes of play. The action picked up in the second half as South Dakota scored off a header just 10 minutes in for the first goal of the game in the 55th minute.

As time continued to wind down, the Panthers remained poised knowing the hard work they put in during practice would pay off. 

“We spend a lot of time in scenarios like being down a goal with five or ten minutes left,” head coach Bruce Erickson said.  “How we change, how we add more attackers.  I think we changed three different formations in the final three minutes. We scored with the extra attack, then converted back to the way we were playing, and finally tried to kill the game out.”

The Panthers did just that as they scored two goals in the final four minutes, one in the 86th minute and one in the 88th minute respectively. Jamie Altheiser tied the game, scoring off a corner kick rebound, followed by Johnnie Hill giving UNI the lead with just 1:02 left to play.

The defense also remained strong as the Panthers allowed just 15 shots with junior goalie Jordyn Petty saving six of the eight shots on goal. UNI will take a road trip down to Kansas City to face Missouri-Kansas City on Friday before returning to Cedar Falls for two games.