The Illinois State soccer team defeated Northern Illinois 3-0 in their home opener at Adelaide Street Field on Friday night. Senior Kate Del Fava continued her impressive scoring streak, burying two goals and assisting on the third. Brittany Paganucci also scored and added an assist of her own, to open her 2019 scoring account.
The Redbirds improve to 2-3-0 on the season, while the Huskies fall to 0-2-1.
"Tonight was a tremendous team performance," said head coach Brad Silvey. "To get the shutout, to get the three goals, and to really own possession the way we did in the second half – tonight was the most complete performance we've had this season and that's really exciting for us."
Del Fava, the reigning back-to-back Missouri Valley Conference Offensive Player of the Week, was quick to show why she deserves that title, jumping on a through ball from Paganucci to slot it into the lower right corner of the goal in the third minute. It was Del Fava's sixth goal of the season and Paganucci's first assist.
Less than seven minutes later, Paganucci would finish a rebounded shot from Del Fava on a corner kick to notch her first goal of the season. Freshman Katherine Felton took the corner kick that resulted in the goal, with both her and Del Fava being credited with assists.
Illinois State's final goal came in the 74th minute, when freshman Allison Baker sent a nice ball through to a crashing Del Fava. Del Fava collected the ball and side-stepped the goalkeeper who had come off her line to record her second brace and third multi-goal match of the season.
Del Fava now has seven goals in the first five games of play, with five of them occurring in the last two games. She took a team-high nine shots in tonight's match, putting six of them on goal.
"It's a great feeling," said Del Fava. "It's only made possible by my teammates and how they keep setting me up. I'm just lucky to have put the goals away and hope to keep doing it for my team."
23 Redbirds saw action in Friday night's victory, with seniors Haley Smith and Megan McEachern going the full 90 minutes. Illinois State outshot NIU 25-7 and 11-2 in shots on goal, while also holding a 9-2 advantage in corner kicks.
Smith made two saves in goal off of seven shots faced to preserve the shutout, the 18th of her career.
UP NEXT
Illinois State takes on in-state foe Illinois in their "Pack the Pitch" match on Sunday evening at Adelaide Street Field. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.
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