Coach New and women's soccer 'worst loss ever'

The Yeowomen were creamed 10-2 by Ohio Northern University on Tuesday in what Coach Blake New called his worst loss ever.

"It was a combination of things: we only had 13 players to take on the road, we had a little bit of bad luck, and we didn't play too great," New said.

Five Yeowomen were out of commission for this game. First-years Brita Olsen, Jessa Klotz and junior Nicole James, sophomore Erin Williamson and senior Atsuko Sakurai all had injuries, meaning that the team had only two substitutes they could use during play.

It became clear that the Yeowomen were going to have a bad day when goalkeeper junior Katie Hanson broke her hand on a save and it started raining heavily.

Despite a 7-2 Ohio Northern lead, their coach sent two of their strongest starters back on the field with 20 minutes remaining. New wrote a letter to Ohio Northern's coach after the game expressing concern that Ohio Northern showed a lack of respect for the Yeowomen during the second half of the game.

"Every team has a bad day. Personally, I will never beat a team more than I think is warranted," New said, "We're not going to put somebody down at all." According to New, Ohio Northern played aggressively even after it was obvious that they had won.

"The game was an aberration," Kathryn Lanouette, first-year goalkeeper, said. "It wasn't in any way our best."

Junior Tikvah Myers agreed, "We had an off day." The team also exhibited some of the same problems shown in their game against John Carroll University. According to Myers, the Yeowomen once again showed problems with spacing, with three or four players crowding around the ball.

"There were points where we did well, but we sometimes didn't play the kind of soccer that we had been practicing all along," Myers said.

Oberlin plays away games at Marietta University on Friday and Muskingum University on Saturday. New said these teams are similar in ability to John Carroll and Ohio Northern. The Yeowomen are looking forward to Friday.

"It'll give us a chance to win a game and put this really bad game out of our minds," Myers said.