Box score

NEWARK, NJ—Temple freshman Ingrid Mello scored once in each half of her college debut, leading the visiting Owls past NJIT, 2-0, in the season opener for both teams Friday night on Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.
 
Mello struck midway through the first half on a brilliant individual effort, dribbling through two defenders and driving the ball home for an unassisted goal at 22:43 and then she struck again with just under 20 minutes showing on the clock, converting off of a short pass from classmate Jillian DiBlasi.
 
The visitors had a slight edge in overall shots, 11-9, and a 5-2 advantage in shots on goal. Sophomore Shauni Kerkoff went all 90 minutes for the clean sheet in goal for Temple, while her counterpart, NJIT sophomore Samantha Bersett, stopped three shots.
 
Neither team had a substantial advantage in possession and NJIT may have applied more pressure than the winners did over the final 45 minutes, outshooting the Owls in the half, 5-3, and getting two corner kicks to none in the half for a 4-2 edge overall.
 
Perhaps the best scoring chance for the Highlanders came in the 82nd minute, when a crossing pass out of the right corner found junior Megan Dellavalle free at the far post, where her header from close range went over the crossbar.
 
With a scoreless 22:43 having gone off the clock, Mello supplied the first goal after receiving a ground pass from out of midfield to the top of the box. The rookie from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, took on, and beat, two defenders, weaving her way free at the 10-yard line just outside the plane of the right post. With that kind of chance, Mello scored easily, firing the ball inside the far post past NJIT's Bersett, who had no chance on the play.
 
Mello struck again at 70:33, taking a feed from DiBlasi, the 2012 Atlantic City Press Player of the Year for Hammonton High School. DiBlasi, on the left wing and just outside the box, sent a shot pass to Mello, who was a few yards away but inside the goal area. Sensing the NJIT defense reacting to the play. Mello took one touch before finishing with a hard 12-yard shot across the goal to the opposite post.
 
"It was not the result we wanted," said NJIT's Mandi Risden of her college head coaching debut. "But I'm proud of the way girls performed. They did what we asked.
 
"On defense, we had a couple of breakdowns and (Temple) capitalized, but we were solid for the most part. We spent a lot of the preseason working on our defensive organization and only recently were we able to start working on the offense. We made some tactical changes at halftime, where we played higher up in the attack and applied pressure when they had the ball in back and it changed the game for the bette for us. We need to work in practice on what we do on offense, but I think we're going to see improvement there with what we're doing now in practice."
 
The Highlanders will return to action at 1 pm Sunday, when they host Rhode Island on Lubetkin Field at Mal Simon Stadium.