The Canisius women's soccer team recorded its second victory of the season Sunday afternoon, beating NJIT 1-0 on a penalty kick goal by freshman Ronja Gustaffson in overtime. The win moves the Griffs to 2-3-2 on the season.

The winning goal came in the early minutes of overtime after a red card and penalty kick were issued to NJIT senior Alex Adam after a takedown. Canisius freshman Emma Westwater had a break away opportunity that would have presumably ended the game, leaving Adam with little choice but to take her down.

The goal was Gustaffson's second on the season, giving the impressive freshman 6 points overall.

“It felt great to get the winning goal, but it's a team game, you win as a team, you lose as a team, today we got the win,” noted Gustaffson.  

Head coach Todd Clark was happy with the way the freshman played today stating “Talk about no pressure, we had one freshman break away for the would be goal and another end it for us so it's pretty cool for them.”

Due to injuries to several key players, the younger players have been forced into larger roles with every freshman seeing action today.

“We've had a couple of injuries, it's the most injuries I've dealt with in my 20 some odd years,” said Clark. “The cool thing is in spite of losing some good players, we've had other younger players stepping into the breach.”

Senior goalkeeper Kailee DeFranks was impressive again for the Golden Griffins making several key saves on potential scoring opportunities, including a diving save late in the second half. She now holds two shutouts on the season for the Griffs.

The team will head into a stretch of four straight away games, with the first coming this Friday against Cleveland State at 7 p.m.

Game Notes

NJIT outshot Canisius 13 to 7 and attempted 10 corner kicks, while the Griffs attempted 0. Gustaffson led the team with three shots including the game winner. The team has found success at home this season moving their home record to 1-1-1. DeFranks now holds a goals against average of 1.37 and a .796 save percentage after the shutout performance.