Verratti Completes Ball State’s Comeback as the MAC Regular Season Comes Down to Friday
Ball State do not do comfortable. The Cardinals trailed at Bellarmine into the final minutes on Thursday, levelled with less than five minutes left, and won it in overtime, 2-1, for a third straight win.
Bellarmine led 1-0 from early in the third quarter and protected that lead all the way into the closing minutes. The host report does not name the scorer, and this piece will not guess. Ball State had controlled the first half, six shots and three penalty corners, and had nothing to show for it. Then, at 55:17, Jade Vandevoorde found Ella Miller, and Miller buried the equaliser to make it 1-1. In overtime, senior Julia Verratti finished off an assist from Isabella Fölster at the 64-minute mark to win it. Goalkeeper Carleigh Hofelich made eight saves at the other end.
The win moves Ball State to 6-11 overall and 3-6 in the Mid-American Conference. Bellarmine fall to 3-14 and 3-6. Ball State close their regular season on Friday afternoon in Louisville, in a neutral-site game against Saint Louis University, and they go into it with momentum that looked impossible an hour into Thursday’s game.
Friday decides the rest of the MAC picture, and the big game is in Boone. Appalachian State, 8-9 overall and 4-4 in the conference, host Longwood at 4pm ET on Senior Day, and a win clinches a place in the MAC Tournament, which runs November 4-7 in Oxford, Ohio. App State have lost their last two, 2-1 to James Madison and 5-0 to North Carolina, but outside of games against ranked opponents they have been hard to score against, conceding 11 goals in 12 such games with five shutouts.
The rest of the day matters too. Kent State visit Ohio at 3pm ET, and Ohio hold the tiebreaker over App State, so the Mountaineers cannot afford to look at anyone else’s score. Bellarmine’s route into the tournament is narrow and needs help elsewhere, with a goal difference far worse than the sides above them. For App State, though, the maths is clean: win, and they are in. Lose, and Friday becomes a waiting game.
Ball State’s Thursday showed what this end of the season looks like. A team that was second best for long stretches, a goalkeeper keeping them in it, one pass at the right moment, and a senior finishing it. Friday in the MAC will have more of the same. The teams that handle the last five minutes will be the ones still playing in November.
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