Women's soccer pounces with merciless 7-2 win

Team kills Hiram after frustrating week of near misses

The women's soccer team sweated out a tough week but ended on a good note with an impressive 7-2 victory over Hiram College on Thursday.

The team took the field confidently for Thursday's game. The Yeowomen scored all seven of their goals before Hiram put a single one in the net.

"We're a team that needs to score early and often," junior Katy Durham-Hammer said. "Our offense was really aggressive."

Durham-Hammer said the one-sided score reflected strong playing by the team as a whole. "It's not just that the score was high, but we played with control and teamwork," she said.

The seven goals were scored by four players, the first by captain senior Lisa Novins. Other players who scored included first-year Susan Axeen, sophomore Jessa Klotz and Durham-Hammer.

Two particularly impressive goals were scored by Novins and Durham-Hammer. "Lisa basically juked everybody and dribbled it into the goal," Durham-Hammer said.

Durham-Hammer's goal came from a near-perfect corner kick by first-year Becky Kanuch, which Durham-Hammer headed into the open net.

The Yeowomen dropped two goals due to inexperience. With such an impressive lead Coach Blake New substituted many second-string players in for starters, and the inexperience showed through.

The victory came on the heels of two frustrating games earlier in the week. The team came into their Tuesday game expecting to win, but ended up with a disappointing and, some say, unfair 2-3 loss to Baldwin-Wallace College.

From the start of the game the Yeowomen played intensely and easily dominated the first-half of regulation time. Consistent passing and dribbling by the Yeowomen left the Baldwin-Wallace defenders working extra hard to keep Oberlin scoreless.

"It was one of those games where I'm sure we could have scored, like, five goals. It could have gone either way," said Durham-Hammer.

However, the visiting team fought back solidly during a break-away play which resulted in an early lead for Baldwin-Wallace. In the 36th minute, junior Maia Skutel's shot, right in front of the goal mouth, equalized for Oberlin. Lisa Novins had the assist after a skilled dribble down the left side of the field.

Soon after, Novins made another run down the left side of the field rushing past at least two defenders and scoring from a difficult angle in the 42nd minute. The half time score was 2-1 Oberlin.

In the second half, however, the Yeowomen started to slow down and lose intensity.

"Defensively we played well all game long. We're just having trouble finishing," said New. This, combined with the doubled efforts of Baldwin Wallace, made it more difficult for the women to hold on to the lead.

Further into the second half, Baldwin-Wallace continued its attack making Oberlin play more defensively. A dubious foul call by the referee against the left back, sophomore Meg Ansara, led to a penalty kick which Baldwin-Wallace was able to capitalize on. With the score tied at 2-2, Oberlin seemed a little disheartened and the talking between players began to die down.

"We played better both offensively and defensively but we need to work on playing as a whole unit," Novins said.

With ten minutes to go Baldwin-Wallace put in the go-ahead goal but Oberlin was not finished yet. In a ten-minute offensive onslaught Oberlin putting constant pressure on the Baldwin-Wallace defense.

With two seconds on the clock Oberlin put what appeared to be the tying goal in the net. But questionable officiating waived off the equalizer to give the Baldwin-Wallace a narrow and controversial victory. Even though the whistle had not been blow, the head referee disqualified the goal.

"We seem to be the team that gets the unlucky calls." Novins said.

"I'm not sure what happened. We have the ability to come back. This was a team we should have beat." New said.

The week began with a trip Saturday to Penn State-Behrend, where the team played a long, frustrating game which ended in a 1-1 tie.

The single Oberlin goal came from Novins off a penalty kick against Penn State. New, frustrated with the officiating, was given a yellow warning card in the game.

The Yeowomen travel to Wittenberg Saturday and will be home Wednesday against Adrian.

-Andrew Kim also contributed to this story.

Straight-arm allowed: Soccer looking stellar. (photo by John Matney)