STONY BROOK, N.Y.—  Temple Women's Soccer opened its 2012 campaign with a 1-1 draw to the Stony Brook Seawolves Sunday afternoon at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium. Senior captain Kate Yurkovic scored the 10th goal of her career in the 25th minute to give the Owls a one-goal advantage for the next 43 minutes until Stony Brook's Aley Leonardi tallied the equalizer in the 68th minute.

“This was a great start to the season, our ladies battled very hard and this is the way we wanted to open the season,” second year head coach Matt Gwilliam said. “A lot of our players got their first taste of playing college soccer today, and they really stepped up and kept us in this match all the way through.”

Of the 15 freshman on the roster, which is the most in program history and the most in Division-I women's soccer, nine players made their Temple debut on the field. Among them, freshman Paige Rachel made her presence known, as she had all three of Temple's shots in the extra time. Rachel's three shots matched Yurkovic for a team-high in the shots category on the day. In their Cherry & White debut, Shannon Senour, Sarah Scheidell and Kylie Hoang were inked on the stat sheet, as they all registered one shot in the match.

Redshirt senior Tara Murphy had a solid outing in between the goal posts in her first match of the season, having nine saves to the eight her counterpart Ashley Castanio had down the other end of the field for Stony Brook.

When Leonardi tied the game at 68:54, the goal ended an impressive scoreless streak Murphy and the Owls held on opponents. Dating back to last season, Temple hadn't allowed a shot reach the back of the net in 278:14, which was back on Oct. 23, 2011 at Dayton.

Leading by a goal at the half, which was scored after Yurkovic's initial shot hit the post before the rebound was fed back to her from sophomore Alyssa Kirk for the score, the Owls and Seawolves were deadlocked in scoring opportunities, having seven shots each.

The Seawolves generated most of the pressure in the second half, swiping eight shots to Temple's three.

The tie in the result column marks the third time in program history that the Owls have opened the season with a draw. In 2007, Temple and Northern Arizona battled to a scoreless tie and in 1993, the Cherry & White tied the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers, 1-1. Sunday's tie is also the second straight game the Owls have matched their opponents scoring output. On Oct. 30, which was the final day of the 2011 regular season, the Owls drew a 0-0 tie with St. Bonaventure.

From here, the Owls will now look to Friday afternoon when they go to Harrisonburg, Va. for a match against Hofstra at 5:00 p.m., which will be played as part of the James Madison Tournament.

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