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Let’s step away from football for a moment to view some of Purdue’s other fall sports. Purdue sponsors the fewest sports of any Big Ten program, but so far this fall things are off to a good start. Volleyball and women’s soccer have been playing for weeks, and women’s cross country begins the year with an invitational win.
Women’s Soccer
Expectations have been low for women’s soccer, as they were picked to finish near the bottom of the Big Ten. The non-conference season was strong, however. The ladies got exhibition wins over Iowa State and No. 18 Notre Dame, then in the seven regular season games Purdue is 5-2 before starting Big Ten play this week with Michigan.
Purdue started the season with a five game homestand and beat Kent State 2-1 in game 1. The second game was a late 2-1 loss to Loyola Marymount, but then recovered to beat Indiana State 6-0, DePaul 2-0, and Dayton 2-0. This weekend they had an Ohio River trip that had a 3-2 win at Louisville and a 2-1 loss at Cincinnati.
Senior Maddy Williams leads the team with six goals on the season. Andrea Petrina and Hannah Melciorre each have three goals as Purdue has outscored its opponents 17-7. Williams also leads the team with 4 assists and 22 shots.
Volleyball
Volleyball is off to an excellent start and was ranked 15th in the nation this past week. As a sign of how hard things are to come, there are eight teams in the top 25 from the Big Ten and four of those are ahead of Purdue. Our ladies are off to a solid 8-1 start that included a 3-1 win over No. 9 rated Creighton last week.
Purdue followed that with a tough 3-1 loss at Kansas, but it was still nice to get a top ten win out of conference. Purdue won the Mortar Board Premier at home and the Wyoming Invitational.
this weekend is the final pre-conference tune-up as Purdue hosts Miami (OH) and Loyola (IL) in the Stacy Clark Classic.
Cross Country
Cross Country got started Labor Day weekend with a trip to Valparaiso for the Crusader Classic Invitational. The women’s team took first place over Notre Dame, IPFW, Western Michigan, and Valparaiso while the men were second.