Box score

The University of Detroit Mercy women's soccer team saw its first action of 2009 on Friday afternoon as it hosted Madonna University at Titan Field, finishing on the short end of a 3-1 final score.

“We've got to look at this for what it was: a scrimmage game,” said Titans head coach Mike Lupenec. “We got a lot of our younger girls some playing time to give them experience in games and to see what they could do, and we gave up three goals making mistakes.”

The Crusaders took a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute on an own goal when the Detroit defense attempted to clear a ball out of the goal box.

Shortly after the start of the second half the Titans evened the score at 1-1 when freshman Mary Leone (St. Clair Shores, MI/Lakeview) found a gap between defenders and fed Janae Paveglio (Flughing, MI/Flushing) for the score. But Madonna would add goals in the 65th and 74th minutes to come away with win. Detroit outshot Madonna in the contest, 11-9.

Sophomore goalkeeper Joanna Hinde (Shelby Twp., MI/Eisenhower) was in action in the first half for the Titans and recorded a pair of saves.

Lupenec took several positives out of the exhibition match.

“We did some really good things as far as ball control and playing in their zone a lot,” he said. “But we need to play quicker, we need to make sure some our key players are healthy and we need to move forward from this. One of the great things about these games is that they are experimental and we got to learn who could play where on the field and what areas we need to improve on.”

Detroit will travel to University Center Tuesday for an exhibition match with Saginaw Valley State at 4 p.m., and will open its regular season at Titan Field against Notre Dame (OH) at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, September 2.