ALTOONA, PA -  The Lady Barons capitalized on the energy from their Saturday win over Penn St.-Behrend,  to earn a 4-0 victory over the Penn State Altoona Lions.  While the whole team played a solid game, offense came together to outstep the Penn State defense and patiently perfect their scoring technique. 

"I definitely have to hand this game to the offense, especially our top three," head coach Clare McBane said. "The defense they were playing pulled a lot of offside traps, so they had to be very patient and very smart on how they attacked. They really capitalized on the chances they had, got us our corners and then finished them."

Flanked by fellow forwards Jordan Byerly and Hannah Cooke, senior forward Ashley Ruttencutter led the Lady Barons' offensive attack.During the first half, Ruttencutter contributed two assists, taking both the corner kicks that resulted in goals.

 Freshman Megan Reiderer and senior Jordan Byerly finished Ruttencutter's corners putting Franciscan in the lead 2-0 after 22 minutes of play. Moving into second half, Cooke added another goal and Ruttencutter continued to lead from up top, scoring Franciscan's fourth goal in the fifty-fifth minute, finishing a long cross from senior Sarah Pettinger.  

"Ruttencuter ended today's game with one goal and two assists," McBane said.  "Again, I definitely have to hand this game to the offense." 

The performance that Cooke, Byerly and Ruttencutter delivered not only won the game, but dramatically affected Franciscan's scoring percentage. Having struggled to make shots on goal count throughout earlier games this season, the three-man team up top changed that trend, a change attributed to smarter soccer overall.

"We've had a lot of games where we outshot teams but have not won or have not scored goals that we should have. The girls really improved their percentage," McBane said. "They were making smarter decisions when they had the opportunity to go to the goal, and they capitalized better on opportunities across the board." 

While every conference game is important, playing Penn State Altoona proved to be an important litmus test for measuring the team's overall performance as compared to last season.  Mentally, the team was prepared to fight hard for a win. 

"Overall, they showed up to the game today," McBane said. "It would have been really easy to come out of the St.-Behrend win and take this game for granted, but they came out hard and they played really well."

Beating Altoona also helps the Lady Barons evaluate their conference standing. Now 8-4-1 overall and 3-1 in conference the Lady Barons are looking forward to their next game against Medaille College on October 11th at 1pm.