KEENE , N.H. 10/14/09 -  Keene State battled #15 ranked Middlebury College to a 1-1 tie in non-conference women's soccer action at Owl Athletic Complex on Wednesday night.

Keene State is now 10-3-1 while Middlebury goes to 7-1-1. 

Taking a lead pass from junior Drew Smith (Silver Springs, Md.), junior Annie Rowell (Craftsbury, Vt.) gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead a the 11:55 mark when she took a couple of dribbles and beat KSC sophomore goalie Megan Dempsey (East Weymouth, Mass.) with a shot to the far corner.  It was Rowell's team-leading seventh goal of the season.

Minutes later, Dempsey kept it a one goal game when she went up and tipped a shot by senior Margaret Owen (Bozeman, Mont.) over the crossbar.

With eight minutes to play in the half, junior Kristen Lundquist (Boxford, Mass.) fired a shot off the left goal post.

The Owls picked up the pressure in the second half and got the equalizer when freshman Joan Hamel (Weare, N.H.) converted a crossing ball from junior Katie Bradford (Lebanon, N.H.) at the 66:33 mark for her first college goal.  "Katie gave me an awesome ball. I stumbled and didn't think I was going to get a shot off, but I did.  I haven't scored a goal all season, so that was big for me."

Dempsey preserved the tie for KSC with a couple of big saves in the closing minute of play in the second overtime. She first stopped a close range shot by Owen with 59 seconds to go and a bid by freshman Hannah Newman (Merion Station, Pa.) with just 15 seconds to play.  

"It was scary at the end. You could tell we were running out of juice," said Dempsey, who finished the game with four saves.  "I don't like overtime, but you have to come up big when you have to.  We played really well in the second half and hopefully if we can play like this every game we'll go somewhere."

"We knew we had to play a solid game against a team like Middlebury," said KSC Coach Denise Lyons.  We played hard, we pressured them and didn't back down.  It was a good team effort and prepared us for Saturday's big conference game against UMass-Boston."

Junior Lauryn Torch (Bronxville, N.Y.) finished the game with three saves for the Panthers.

Middlebury outshot KSC 10-5. The Owls had the only corner of the game in the second overtime.