GREENVILLE, Pa. – The Franciscan women's soccer team surrendered a goal in the final second of regulation in a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Thiel, Friday evening.

The Lady Barons and Tomcats were knotted 1-1 for the final 17 minutes of regulation and appeared to be headed into overtime until Thiel's Maddie Sollers knocked in a cross off of a deflection for the game winning goal with one second left on the clock.

"These are the kind of losses that define you as a team – either you learn from and grow or you let it crumble you," remarked head coach Clare McBane. "We are going to practice tomorrow and hopefully grow from it, learn, and become a better soccer team."

Though the Lady Barons took some time to start to play their game, once they found their groove they were able to build through the midfield and really produce good give and goes to create scoring opportunities. For the match, Franciscan out-shot Thiel 19-5, including a 7-2 advantage in shots on goal.

Franciscan capitalized on one of those opportunities as sophomore Kelsey Scott-Avery scored the game's first goal and her second of the season with 11:32 to play. Scott-Avery collected the ball inside the 18-yard box and put the ball out of reach of the goalie for the 1-0 FUS lead.

"The biggest thing this game proved to us is the need to work on finishing," continued Coach McBane. "We need to have a greater soccer maturity in the box when it comes to our finishes and we learned the importance of taking advantage of our chances when we have them early on in the game."

The Lady Barons closed out the half with the final two shots and opened the second with the first seven, including two that were saved and one off of the crossbar.

Thiel's first shot of the second half was an important one as Kaytee Candela took a short breakaway to the goal and scored to tie the game 1-1 with 17:31 to play in regulation. Franciscan was able to get off five more shots, including a penalty kick, but could not take the lead. Thiel's second shot of the half was the game-winning goal in the final second of regulation.

"This game was really ours to win or ours to lose," remarked Coach McBane. "This is a painful one. We had to learn today that you have to play until that final whistle and not go flat. We will learn and grow from it though."

Franciscan is off for the rest of the weekend and will look to grow from tonight's game as the Lady Barons host Muskingum on Wednesday for their first home game of the season. The game is slated to start at 5:00 pm.