Women's Soccer 11/3/04 -- Macalester 1, Augsburg 0

BOXSCORE

ST. PAUL, Minn. (11/3/04) -- Jessica Bullen (Sr., Ashland, Ore.) scored on a header in the 13th minute, providing the lone scoring that Macalester College would need in a 1-0 triumph over visiting Augsburg College in a Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference women's soccer playoff semifinal game Wednesday night at Macalester Stadium.

Macalester, the MIAC's regular-season champion, is now 15-3-1 overall. Macalester will host the conference playoff championship game against No. 2-seed Concordia-Moorhead on Saturday (11/6) at 7 p.m. Concordia (13-5-1) drew with No. 3-seed St. Olaf 3-3 (2 OT) and advanced 5-4 on penalty kicks in Wednesday's other semifinal.

Augsburg finishes its season at 10-8-0 overall. The Auggies advanced to the MIAC postseason for the first time in school history, and completed the second-best three-year stretch in school history. Augsburg is 32-18-4 over the last three seasons, just a game shy of the best three-year stretch, 33-14-4 from 1995-97. Augsburg finished 7-4-0 in MIAC play, the most league wins in a single season in school history.

The game's lone goal came on a left-side drive early in the game. Katie Pastorius (Jr., Arden Hills, Minn./Mounds View HS) fed a pass from the left side of the penalty box from 25 yards out, which Bullen headed in the middle of the penalty box past Augsburg goalkeeper Liz Osterman (Fr., Lincoln, Neb./Lincoln Southeast HS).

Macalester outshot Augsburg by a 22-4 margin in the game. Augsburg had just two shots on goal in the game, but both were solid scoring chances. The first came late in the first half, when a Becky Lewis (So., Duluth, Minn./Duluth Marshall HS) blast on a break from the top of the penalty box was punched out by Macalester goalkeeper Louisa Bigelow (Jr., Chicago, Ill./Evanston Township HS), one of her two saves in the game.

The second scoring chance came with 13 minutes to play in the second half, when Augsburg was fouled near the penalty box. But a free kick by Emily Anderson (So., Hudson, Wis.) went high over the net. Augsburg had another chance with about five minutes remaining on a corner kick, but could not get off a shot in the penalty box.

Osterman had one of her best games as an Auggie against a tough opponent, coming up with eight saves. Osterman ended her season with a 1.33 goals-against-average and an .802 save percentage. Her 10 wins tied for the fourth-most in a single season in school history, and her GAA is the seventh-best in school history.

Augsburg was playing without its leading scorer, Millie Suk (Jr., Rochester, Minn./Mayo HS), who missed the game due to a concussion suffered in a game last week. Lewis had two of Augsburg's four shots in the game.