ST. LOUIS – In one of the most anticipated matches of the 2024 season, the No. 12 Penn State women’s soccer team jumped ahead early and never looked back, as a brace from redshirt senior forward Kaitlyn MacBean powered the Nittany Lions to a 2-1 victory in their road opener over the No. 19 Saint Louis Billikens from Robert R. Hermann Stadium.
For MacBean, her dominant stretch of performances dating to last year’s NCAA Tournament continued Sunday afternoon, with the Excelsior, Minnesota, native logging her seventh and eighth goals of the year respectively, while moving up to five goals in the past four days following her performance in eastern Missouri. The Nittany Lion striker published one of the most dominant weeks of work in recent Penn State history while recording just the fourth multi-goal match in her collegiate career.
MacBean needs just two more goals to match and three to surpass the best statistical season of her Nittany Lion journey, booking eight scores through five matches compared to 10 goals across 23 appearances in 2023. With her scores against the Billikens on Sunday, MacBean ensured that she would take sole ownership of the No. 3 spot in the Nittany Lion record book for consecutive matches with a goal, finding the back of the net in each of her last eight appearances. MacBean is just the second woman in Penn State history to record a streak of eight or more consecutive matches with a goal, trailing Nittany Lion legend and NCAA Division I record holder Tiffany Weimer, who logged a 13-match streak in 2004 followed by a 17-match run in 2005.
Penn State booked its third consecutive victory Sunday afternoon, as well as its fourth win overall through five contests in 2024, moving to 4-1-0 following its weekend trip through the Gateway to the West. In defeat, Saint Louis falls for the first time in 2024 and moves to 2-1-2 through its inaugural quintet of outings this year. The Nittany Lions improved to 19-0 all-time against current Atlantic 10 Conference member institutions while picking up the program’s second all-time win over the Billikens, with Sunday’s finish joining a 4-3 overtime victory in the 2023 NCAA Tournament Round of 16 from Jeffrey Field. PSU and SLU’s budding rivalry in women’s soccer currently favors the Nittany Lions by a 2-0-0 margin, as well as a 6-4 goal differential following Sunday’s effort.
The box score tells the tale of a hyper-competitive, nationally ranked non-conference clash, with the home squad…
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