The University of Minnesota Duluth maintained the course this afternoon picking up a much needed 3-1 victory over Southwest Minnesota State University. The Bulldogs widen their gap on the last playoff spot in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference race. UMD (8-4-1, 5-4-1 NSIC) scored first but the Mustangs (0-12, 0-10 NSIC) would score their fifth goal of the season to tie it. The Bulldogs dug in and scored twice to regain the lead and give them cushion in the final minutes.

It was a special day for junior forward Madison Carey. At the 58:08 mark, Carey netted the game winner after UMD coughed up the lead 74 seconds earlier. Her goal, which was an well-executed give-an-go with sophomore Nan Glinsek, turned out to be the game-changing marker as the Bulldogs put the stops to the Mustangs' offense. It was Carey's first collegiate goal and it couldn't of happened at a better time as she was honoring her mother today with her Kicks for Causes campaign with the Circle of Hope foundation for the fight against metastatic breast cancer.

UMD, which has fallen behind each of the last four games, grabbed the lead in the 27th minute. It was a corner-kick-barrage as the Bulldogs attempted nine corner kicks with cix coming in the first half. On that sixth corner kick, UMD struck gold. Sophomore forward Logan Nash passed the corner kick to junior defender Lizzy Fontes, who studied the pitch briefly before launched her crowd into a traffic jam at the net. Junior defender Erika Hjort headed the ball past the keeper to grant the Bulldogs a 1-0 lead.

Securing the lead for good was junior forward Destiny Schmitz. The junior striker placed the ball past the keeper for the fifth time in the previous five games. The red-hot Schmitz has scored all 11 points this season the last six games. After a bad clearance, senior forward Hailey Hoff floated a shot past the netminder and rang it off the crossbar. Schmitz was in position as her boxed out her defender and headed the ball in. 

Junior goalkeeper Sisley Ng made one save for her seventh victory. Her one save was a speculator sprawling save on a on-on-one opportunity by the Mustangs' Jenna Meyer. SMSU led a counter attack that caught the defense out guard. Meyer slipped in behind the back line and fired it off the laid out Ng wide of the net.

UMD moved one point behind the University of Mary, who lost to Winona State University, for the seventh slot. Coming into the day, the Bulldogs only had a two point lead, and they extended it with losses by Sioux Falls University, Northern State University, and Upper Iowa University. Four points separate UMD and now-eighth place St. Cloud State University.

The Bulldogs return to the pitch tomorrow afternoon with a contest against Sioux Falls. Game time of that showdown at Malosky Stadium is schedule for 1:00 p.m. kick off.