Oct. 23, 2009
Final Stats
RUSTON, La. - Sophomore Kiva Gresham scored her second goal of the game in the final 1:07 of the second overtime to give Tech a 2-1 win over conference-leader New Mexico State.
The Lady Techsters improved to 12-5-1 overall and 1-5 in the Western Athletic Conference. It was also their first-ever WAC win. New Mexico State fell to 9-6-1 overall and 4-1-1 in the WAC.
Gresham, for the fourth consecutive game started at forward and scored her seventh goal in the 22nd minute on a long up-the-field pass from sophomore Scottie Culton.
It appeared that Tech would need only 90 minutes to pull off the upset from a team that had gone 6-1 in their last seven games. Then a goalkeeper mistake allowed NMSU's Kassie Martinez to score with 1:05 remaining in regulation.
Tech regrouped and came out in overtime with the same intensity as they did in the first period where they outshot the Aggies 5-1. On a pass from Kat McCullough toward the goal, Olivia Lukasewich tapped the ball to Gresham who nailed her eighth goal of the season in the second overtime period.
Gresham has become a force on offense, scoring the last three goals of the season for Tech.
"Of all the days that you want to get the first win, you couldn't have scripted it any better to do it on senior day," head coach Kevin Sherry said. "For us to be in a winning situation, throw it away and then come back, you couldn't have scripted it any better. My heart couldn't take it. This has been coming for a long time. It was well deserved."
Shots taken were even at 14 with each team taking seven shots on goal. Tech goalkeeper Cat Buchanan had six saves for her 11th win of the season.
One of the two seniors was McCullough, who led the Techsters in shots with seven and shots on goal with four. The Coppell, Texas native also added the game-winning assist to cap her final home game.
"She can now go away being proud of what she's done," Sherry said. "It took all of those five years and hard work for that one moment, but that's what life is. I'm happy for the team, the seniors and the seniors that graduated last year because they were apart of this today."
Hikari Kuroawa (Okayama, Japan) also played the final home game in her two-year career as a Lady Techster.
Tech is now 1-27-6 in conference play over their five years in the WAC and six years of being a program.
"Now we can really start to play," Sherry said.
LA Tech will next be in action at Utah State on Friday, Oct. 30 at 4 p.m.
