The competitive, rigorous opening schedule of Ball State University's soccer season culminated with Friday's wet and wild 3-2 victory over Indiana State University.
With a consistently tied score, it looked as though the team that made the last play would come out on top. That play favored the Cardinals as Emily Rein scored with 1:56 left in regulation.
"The goalie made a play and just miss-hit [the ball]," Rein said. "She hit it right to me, and everybody was yelling, 'shoot, shoot,' so I did. I don't really remember much else."
Coach Michelle Salmon remembered the play vividly after the game.
"Today was just a typical Emily performance," said Salmon of her star forward, who also had an assist on the day. "We see this out of her every day in practice. She just out-works her opponents, and she has excellent game recognition.
"The keeper made a mistake," Salmon added, "and Emily was just able to get the ball, and she hit a forty-yard bomb."
Shortly after the start of the second half the madness began. Indiana State's Sarah Whitely opened the scoring in the 46th minute, scoring from twenty yards out.
The goal seemed to temporarily suck the wind out of Ball State's sails, but the momentum was flipped the other way only 23 seconds later when the Cardinals' Sarah Leibel evened the score.
"One of the things about this team is that they have tremendous character and tremendous heart," Salmon said. "It's only fitting that we scored less than a minute after they scored.."
Just minutes after the game was knotted up at one, a fluke lightning storm popped up interrupting the match with a 1 hour 20 minute lightning delay.
"It's funny because we play the first six out of seven games on the road and then we come home and get over an hour [lightning] delay," Salmon said. "But I think it's great that we're getting thrown a lot of curveballs early on I think today's win shows for the resiliency of our team."
The momentum stayed on Ball State's side after play resumed. The Cardinals took the lead on Angie Heyer's goal in the 60th minute.
"Since we had just scored when the lightning struck and we had the momentum we would have been really upset if the game had been cancelled," Leibel said. "We knew that we could win this game, so we were just happy that we got to play again."
Again the score was tied, this time in the 84th minute by the Sycamores' Meaghan Gaffney. Just when it looked as if the match was headed for overtime, lightning struck again in a completely different way with Rein scoring the winning goal.
The Cardinals used the win's momentum to pull out a 1-0 road victory over Big Ten opponent Northwestern University on Sunday. The win makes the Cardinals 3-1-2 on the year.
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