ERIE Pa. - The Slippery Rock University women's soccer team lost, 5-3, on the road at Gannon University in the quarterfinal round of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Tournament Tuesday.
 
The loss drops Slippery Rock's record to 12-4-3 on the season overall while Gannon improves to 12-2-3 on the year and advances to Friday's semifinal round where it will face either Millersville University or Kutztown University.
 
Slippery Rock now waits to see if it is one of the five teams from the Atlantic Region which will earn an at-large berth into the 2021 NCAA Tournament. The top seven teams in the Atlantic Region in the final set of rankings will earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament as the tournament champions from the PSAC and the Mountain East Conference will both earn automatic bids with the five at-large bids from the region being determined by the rankings.
 
To qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the 10th time in school history, Slippery Rock would need help in the form of upsets in the PSAC and MEC conference tournaments as SRU was ranked eighth in the most recent regional rankings.
 
Regardless of whether or not SRU gains an at-large bid to the national tournament, The Rock has now produced 25 consecutive winning seasons.
 
Jordyn Minda led the way for The Rock Tuesday with one goal and one assist. Sydney Patrick also produced a multi-point game with a pair of assists.
 
Maddie DeLucio and Julia Mascaro accounted for The Rock's other two goals while Georgia Nagucki and Katy Ericson contributed one assist each. Reigning PSAC West Defensive Player of the Week Goalkeeper Emma Yoder made six saves over 90 minutes.  
 
The Golden Knights got off to an early start, scoring the game's first goal just four minutes in with Taylor Lewis landing a shot past Yoder to take the early 1-0 lead.
 
Minda promptly answered back for The Rock less than two minutes later at 4:59 off a corner kick ball sent into play by Ericson that ricocheted off of Patrick and eventually to Minda for her eighth goal of the season.
 
However, Gannon proceeded to score two goals over the remainder of the first half to take a 3-1 lead into halftime before coming out of the break by tacking on two more goals in the opening 20 minutes of the second half and stretching its lead out to four goals in the process.
 
Slippery Rock finished the contest strong with goals by Mascaro in the 68th minute and a final tally by DeLucio in the 84th minute, but the deficit proved to be too large to overcome as SRU could not record another shot following DeLucio's strike as the Golden Knights closed out the 5-3 win.
 
Mascaro score was her third of the year while DeLucio's goal marked the first of what figures to be a great collegiate career.
 
For the game, the Golden Knights held advantages over The Rock in total shots (20-12) and shots on goal (11-5) while SRU led in corner kicks (13-3). Sarah Fails scored twice for Gannon.
 
The 56-team NCAA Division II Tournament field will be unveiled Nov. 15.



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