Navy and Gold Fall to Wildcats
William Penn University Athletics
Oskaloosa — Lightening delayed the start of the William Penn women’s soccer game Wednesday night but the team played a hard 90 minutes against Culver-Stockton. The Statesmen were in the contest for most of the game, but two errors saw them drop their first Heart of America Athletic Conference game of the year 2-0. The squad is now 4-3 on the season and 0-1 in conference play.
The navy and gold started out with energy, as Kaitlin Falaney (Fr., Ottawa, Ill., Sports Management) took the first shot of the game just a couple of minutes in as she stole a 50/50 ball from a defender. She made a good run and a good shot but the Wildcat goalie made a diving stop well off her goal-line to keep things scoreless. The Statesmen had the first six shots of the game and they looked sharp as a team, pressing Culver-Stockton. However, the first corner kick of the game for the Wildcats saw the ball come off the hands of goalie Riley Ludwig (Sr., Big Bear City, Calif., Psychology) into the path of a Culver-Stockton player, who scored the first goal of the game.
The rest of the first half was a little more back and forth. Anna Matthew (So., Glendale Heights, Ill., Biology) came off the bench and provided a spark while Brittney Severson (So., Omaha, Neb.) also played hard after missing a couple of games. At halftime, the game seemed to still be in the balance as the Statesmen had played well despite being down a goal. The team outshot the Wildcats 9-6 and had a corner kick advantage of 3-1.
The second half started and again WPU seemed to be the better side. Falaney again had the first crack at goal but it was blocked. Erika Tam (Fr., La Palma, Calif., Biology) was brought in to help give the midfield a more offensive look while Isabella Pirami (So., South Jordan, Utah, Exercise Science) continued to be the driving force of the team. Playing well at both ends and delivering great passes, she seemed to be getting the Statesmen well positioned to tie the game.
Again the team would outshoot the Wildcats 9-6 and take four corners compared to one for the visitors, but another mistake saw the team’s hope of another comeback dashed. A back pass towards Ludwig was left well short of her and a Culver-Stockton forward jumped on the ball and scored to give the visitors a 2-0 lead. WPU threw everything they had at the Wildcat net but time expired on the home side.
“Difficult result for our ladies tonight,” said head coach Jaymee Highcock. “We played some good soccer and created some good chances tonight but we could not a way past the Culver-Stockton goalie. We worked on defending corners a lot this week, so to concede from an early corner was difficult for us to recover from. However, the performance and the effort were good enough to win the game. We know we have to be at our very best to get a positive result against Benedictine on Saturday.”
Next Up: The next three games are on the road, as the Statesmen will first travel to Kansas to take on the Ravens of Benedictine on Saturday, with kick-off scheduled for 5:00 p.m.
