Tough road soccer defeat for Central women
DECORAH — Winning all of the statistical categories except for the most important one, the Central College women’s soccer team lost 2-0 at Luther College Saturday afternoon.
Despite attempting more shots and earning more corner kicks than the Norse (3-4-1, 1-0-0 A-R-C), the Dutch (5-4-1, 0-1-0 A-R-C) could not find a goal. Central fired off 13 shots, placing five on goal.
“We’ve got to figure out ways to be a little more clinical there,” coach Mike Kobylinski said. “Or just relax and tuck it away like we do every day in practice.”
Midfielder Mikaela Erickson (senior, Spring Lake, Mich., Western Michigan Christian HS) paced the team with three of her five shots landing on frame.
“Mikaela had a good game with some nice shots on frame,” Kobylinski said. “Elise Askelsen (midfielder, senior, Indianola) also had one of our more dangerous shots.”
Defensively, Central yielded a penalty kick goal in the first half and allowed a second Luther tally on a defensive miscue in the 72nd minute.
“Outside of those two instances, we were pretty sound defensively,” Kobylinski said.
Loras College comes to Pella and the A.N. Kuyper Athletics Complex on Saturday for a 1 p.m. match. The two teams played to a 1-1 draw in 2015 and 2017, the last two times they met in pella.
“Hopefully we can put some pieces together that we did for the game in 2017,” Kobylinski said. “We need to keep our spirits high and I’m encouraged that we can get back to work on Monday.”
