FSU Tallies Third Straight Victory, Downs North Florida 7-0 Junior Mami Yamaguchi nets her third hat trick of the season.

9/19/07

Tallahassee, Fla. – No. 11 Florida State (5-2-0) got three goals from Mami Yamaguchi while the Seminole defense posted its fourth straight shutout at home en route to a 7-0 victory over North Florida (1-5-1) Tuesday evening at the Seminole Soccer Complex. With the win, the Seminoles pushed their home unbeaten streak to 24 games (22-0-2) while FSU has now outscored the opposition 28-0 through the first four games at home this year.

Yamaguchi set the school record for the most hat tricks ever recorded by a Seminole student-athlete with her third of the season. The Tokyo, Japan native has now pushed her season totals to a team-high 12 goals and 29 points. Her 29 points surpasses her career total of 28 compiled in her first two seasons wearing the Garnet and Gold. Yamaguchi has now registered a point in all seven games this season.

“I have to give credit to my teammates, they are always giving me a lot of good chances,” said Yamaguchi. “Except for the free kicks, my teammates are finding me and giving me the opportunity to score.”

“We know that Mami is an unbelievable player,” said head coach Mark Krikorian. “When you have chances, elite players finish those chances. She has done a very good job of being opportunistic and putting herself in situations to finish those goals and tonight was another good example of that.”

The first half of play was once again dominated by the Florida State offense as the Seminoles outshot the Ospreys 17-0 Tuesday night. It marked the third consecutive game that the Seminole defense has held the opposition without a shot in the first half of play.

“Our defense was pretty solid,” added Krikorian. “We are limiting the opponents chances and need to keep doing that from here on out.”

The game started in record fashion as it took FSU just 26 seconds to score the first goal of the evening. Freshman Sanna Talonen scored her sixth goal of the season on a header off a crossbar rebound. Kirsten van de Ven started the play as she fired a header shot off the crossbar. The ball went right to Talonen who finished with a header of her own. The goal was the quickest scored in the first half in FSU history surpassing the previous record of 41 seconds set by Erin Grimsley in 1997.

Yamaguchi would tally the next three goals with two coming in the first half to give the Seminoles a 3-0 advantage at the half. The first goal came off a corner kick, one of 10 in the game for the Seminoles. Yamaguchi sent a nice bending shot into the far post in the 20th minute.

With less than four minutes in the half, Talonen took the ball down left side of the pitch off a North Florida turnover and sent a nice pass to Yamaguchi who one-timed a shot past the diving UNF goalkeeper into the lower right corner from eight yards outs.

In the 51st minute, Yamaguchi would notch her third goal of the evening curling a free kick into the upper right corner from 22 yards out. Junior Katrin Schmidt was fouled on the play setting up the free kick goal by Yamaguchi.

Florida State would tack on three late goals in a span of less than three minutes to give the Seminoles the 7-0 victory. Freshman Rachel Lim started the scoring with her second goal of the season off an assist from sophomore Annie Stalzer.

Just over one minute later, freshman Casey Lademann connected on her first collegiate goal one-timing a pass from Lim into the back of the net from 11 yards out.

“I was on the outside and saw the play develop,” said Lademann. “When Rachel ran and got the ball I was hoping she was going to pick her head up and see me right there. At first I wasn’t sure where it was going on my body. It was too low for my knees so I kind of put a foot behind it and got the goal.”

Stalzer rounded out the scoring in the 81st minute as she slammed a shot in from 19 yards out. The ball went into the upper left side right between the outstretched hands of Osprey keeper Rachael Howard. It was Stalzer’s second goal of the season.

“This win definitely gives us a lot of confidence, but we all feel we can perform at a much higher level,” explain Lademann. “It wasn’t our best performance tonight but we always have things to improve on and I think we will be ready for UCF on Saturday.”

The Seminoles finished the game out shooting UNF 28-3, while maintaining the corner kick advantage at 10-3.

Erin McNulty and Kate Milstead combined for the team shutout as the two each played 45 minutes in net for Florida State.

Florida State will travel south to face UCF in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday, September 22. Game time is set for 7:00 pm. The Seminoles will return home on Thursday, September 27 as they welcome the North Carolina Tar Heels to town in the ACC opener for both teams. If you missed the action from tonight’s game against North Florida, you can catch the game in its entirety On Demand at ACC Select.