BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh women's soccer team peppered American all day, but it was the Mountain Hawks' 30th shot of the afternoon that found the back of the net as Lehigh defeated the Eagles, 1-0 in overtime on Saturday afternoon. It was sophomore Annika Jansa who scored her team-leading fourth goal of the season to send the Mountain Hawks home winners. With the win, Lehigh improves to 6-3-4 on the season, including 2-1-2 in Patriot League play.
 
"We created a lot of really good chances," said Lehigh head coach Eric Lambinus. "We've gone through some struggles scoring some goals and sometimes, we panic and take some bad shots and force it a little bit. But what I told the team and what I thought was good is even though we were frustrated that we didn't finish, we started to create better chances. We didn't settle for shots from distance. We started to work hard and get it deeper, and it paid off in the end with a goal. I would have liked to have seen it a little bit earlier, but I like the way we're playing and I like the way we're attacking. I think we're going to be fine."
 
Lehigh's first golden opportunity of the game came in the seventh minute as American goalkeeper Ryleigh Brown came out strong to save a shot from sophomore Maggie Wadsworth at the top of the box.
 
In the 16th minute, American tallied its first (and only) shot of the first half. Lehigh responded with the final 10 shots of the stanza, five of which were stopped by Brown to keep the game scoreless at the half.
 
The Eagles had a small flurry early in the second half, which included two shots and a corner kick between the 53rd and 54th minutes. Lehigh sophomore goalkeeper Sam Miller made her only save of the game in that stretch, and the Mountain Hawks responded by upping their pressure as the half progressed. Their best chances came in the final three minutes of regulation as they fired four shots and created three corner kicks. Brown made a pair of spectacular saves in the final minute, first off a Lisa Kestelboym shot from in close, then again on a Sabrina Mertz rebound chance.
 
Mertz had a glittering chance in the 96th minute, fighting through contact to get a quality shot, but it hit the crossbar. Less than two minutes later, Jansa ended it, corralling a loose ball off a corner kick and firing a low shot inside the left post at the 97:19 mark.
 
"We needed this win," said Lambinus. "We needed to get three points, no matter how it came, even if it needed to be ugly. It was really important to get three points out of this game to keep our place in the standings. We want to not only continue to play well, attack well and defend well, but we want to start getting some results and get a couple more goals."
 
Final shots were 30-7 in favor of Lehigh while the Mountain Hawks held a 9-3 edge in corner kicks. Brown finished with 13 saves for American while Miller made one stop for her sixth shutout of the season and 18th of her career.
 
Lehigh will return to action next Saturday (Oct. 14) when it heads to Lafayette for a 7 p.m. kickoff.
 
"Nobody besides the people who go to Lehigh or Lafayette will ever understand the magnitude of the rivalry," said Lambinus. "Even for me, it took three or four years to truly understand what the rivalry means and how it's just different from any other game. That's a good thing. It's great to have a perfect rivalry and we love playing this game. There's going to be awesome intensity. For us, we'll need to play the game under control with the right emotions and the intensity the rivalry deserves."
 
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