The 23-year-old Talonen, a member of Finland's senior national team, sent Florida State to the Women's College Cup for the third consecutive season and for the fourth time in five years with a hat trick in the Seminoles' 3-2 win over Connecticut Friday night at the Seminole Soccer Complex.
Talonen scored the golden goal in the 104th minute for her third goal of the evening and second hat trick of the tournament. The Seminoles fought back from a goal down twice in the match before Talonen capped off the victory with a diving header into the lower right corner.
Florida State coach Mark Krikorian called the match an epic classic between two teams that just didn't want to lose.
Brittany Tegeler struck first for UConn in the 4th minute, Talonen equalized in the 18th when she collected the rebound of a shot Husky keeper Stephanie Labbe was unable to control. Annie Yi put UConn back ahead in the 58th minute, and Talonen equalized a second time with less than 10 minutes left in the game when Talonen redirected Kartrin Schmidt's shot.
"I think at different moments during the season we had defining moments," said Krikorian, "and I think we had a couple of them tonight. We got down by a goal, we fought back to equalize, got down by a goal the second time, fought back to equalize, and of course had the finish at the end to assist us moving forward to another final four."
Game Summary:
Nov. 30 in Tallahassee, Fla.
Florida State 3 Connecticut 2 (OT). Goals: Talonen (Yamaguchi) 18, Talonen (Schmidt) 82, Talonen (Schmidt) 104; Tegeler (Schnur) 4, Yi 58.
Florida State -- McNulty, Sutton, Schmidt, Gianeskis, Edwards, Kazbour, DaCosta, van de Ven, Peltzer, Yamaguchi, Talonen. Subs: Stalzer, Switzer, Lim.
Connecticut -- Labbe, Diakun, Ebert, Riviere, Macisaac, Schnur, Taylor, Richards, Gundling, Eng, Tegeler. Subs: Fugowski, Yi, Gray, Cunningham, O'Brien, Zedros.
Referee: Mike Balson.
Att.: 1,703.
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