Women’s soccer won in thrilling fashion against the Miami University Redhawks Thursday at the NIU Soccer and Track & Field Complex.

Senior midfielder Allie Ingham headed in the game-winning goal three minutes into overtime to give NIU (6-5-1, 3-2 Mid-American Conference) the 2-1 victory over the Redhawks.

The win gives NIU its first home victory of the season and keeps the Redhawks (0-11-1, 0-4-1 MAC) searching for their first win of the season.

Head Coach John Ross said he thought his team played well for most of the game and was happy the team finally got its first home win under its belt.

“This is our home field,” Ross said. “We expect to win here every time we step on the field, and I think we’ve been a little snakebitten in some of our games here. It’s nice to get that off our back and now we can just go forward and really concentrate on this [being] our home field and this is where we’re going to play the best.”

The Huskies kicked off the scoring in the 40th minute when freshman defender Haley Hoppe headed in a ball off a corner kick from redshirt junior midfielder Lauren Gierman. It was Hoppe’s third goal of the season and Gierman’s team-leading sixth assist. All three of Hoppe’s goals have come on corner kicks from Gierman.

The goal also tied Hoppe for the team lead in goals with three and points with seven, the same as her fellow teammate in junior forward Taylor Sarver.

“We’ve always wanted to take advantage of aerial battles and [Hoppe] is just a special player in the air,” said Ross, according to NIU Media Services. “We’ve had some good ones in the past but she’s come in and put her stamp on this team and what type of player she’ll be in this league.”

The Redhawks put the pressure on the Huskies defense in the second half and scored the equalizer in the 79th minute when senior defender Jenny Barr caught a deflection and put it in the back of the net, and regulation time ended with the scored tied at 1-1.

NIU answered three minutes into overtime with Ingham’s goal and sealed the game.

{{tncms-inline account=”NIUNorthernStar” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">GOAL HUSKIES! Allie Ingham scores the game-winner in overtime to give NIU the 2-1 victory over the RedHawks! ⚽️</p>— Northern Star (@NIUNorthernStar) <a href="https://twitter.com/NIUNorthernStar/status/916016300236972032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 5, 2017</a></blockquote>” id=”916016300236972032″ type=”twitter”}}

Ingham said the team had an attitude to end the game quickly heading into overtime, and they succeeded.

“We had a really good attitude [going into overtime],” Ingham said. “Just getting back in and being determined to win it right at the beginning of overtime. That’s what we said [to not] make it 20 minutes. Let’s make it as short as we can, and that’s what we did.”

The Huskies outshot the Redhawks, 15-9, and held the edge in corner kicks, 6-4. Both teams committed seven fouls.

NIU will face a familiar foe from last season’s MAC Tournament when it takes on the Ball State University Cardinals 1 p.m. Sunday in Muncie, Indiana. The Huskies defeated the Cardinals in the first round of the MAC Tournament Oct. 30 last season.