Final Stats

VILLANOVA, Pa. ââ'¬" Extra time hadn't been especially kind to the Villanova Wildcats in the early stages of 2016.

But that changed on a blustery, overcast afternoon at the Higgins Soccer Complex.

Sophomore Zach Zandi converted a penalty kick at 98:19 to lift the Wildcats to their first overtime victory of the season, a 1-0 victory over Princeton today, in their fourth extra session of the campaign. Prior to this contest, VU had been 0-2-1 in overtime, with two of those losses coming on home turf.

Junior Lucas Hodges created the PK, drawing a foul just inside the top of the 18-yard box that gave Villanova its best scoring chance on a day when space and scoring chances had been tough to come by. Zandi then calmly drilled the ball into the lower left side of the net to boost the 'Cats (5-3-1 overall, 1-1 BIG EAST) to a strong non-conference win over the Tigers (4-3 overall, 0-0 Ivy League).

"This was a great team win for us," stated Villanova head coach Tom Carlin. "We had some great performances. For us to be able to play 15 guys and build a competitive spirit is fantastic."

Carlin credited Hodges' effort in creating the penalty kick.

"It's a real easy thing called running hard," Carlin stated. "When you run hard into space, good things happen. Lucas, John Jlopleh, Jake (Jacob Anderson) and Padge (Padraic McCullaugh), did that well for us.

: "Lucas made a play, got in behind their defense, and the defender was forced to make a choice: either make an awkward tackle or let Lucas get the shot off. He made an awkward tackle and it turned into a PK."

Scoring chances were at a premium throughout the afternoon. Winds picked up in the second half to 15-20 miles per hour and Villanova mostly kept the Tigers away from creating dangerous chances. The Wildcats generated near misses from Andreas Bartosinski in the 50th minute on a free kick blast that hit the crossbar and rolled away and a bid late in the second half that narrowly missed the right side of the net off the foot of Andres Camacho.

"They're a balanced team and they aren't easy to solve," Carlin noted. "But we remained patient and stuck to the game plan."

After 90 minutes, the match was deadlocked at zero.

"We talked before the start of overtime about being disciplined and maintaining our fundamentals," stated Carlin. "It's easy to say those things but it is difficult to do after you have played nearly 100 minutes of soccer. I thought the guys showed good resilience there."

Wildcats goalkeeper Will Steiner made three saves in net in posting his second clean sheet of 2016. Josh Haberman made four saves for the Tigers.

Villanova resumes BIG EAST action on Saturday when it hosts DePaul at 1 p.m. at the Higgins Soccer Complex. The match will be carried on the BIG EAST Digital Network.