Women's soccer tears it up in a 4-0 victory

When you're hot, you're hot, and this weekend the OC Women's Soccer Team was on fire. The team shutout Thiel College, 2-0 and did the same to Alma College in a 4-0 win. The only low point in a stellar week of play came in a tough 1-0 loss to Adrian College.

Saturday's game against Thiel was played in less than desirable conditions. "We were playing on a dirt field with no grass and no [athletic] trainers," said sophomore Alison Marshall. This might have been an issue for some, but not for the Yeowomen.

Sophomore midfielder Susan Axeen opened the scoring with an unassisted goal in the first half. Assistant coach Katherine Roberts praised Axeen's first goal of the year,. "Susan had a good outside shot,." said Roberts.

"Susan did a really nice job controlling the pace of the game and looking for the open player," said Marshall. Coming out of the half with a 1-0 edge, the Yeowomen were confident - perhaps too confident - in their control of the game. "It wasn't too pretty," said Roberts, "We played kind of sloppy and the other team wasn't very good."

"We started off playing really well in the first half," said head coach Jane Wildman, "but when we knew we were controlling the second half, we came out a little flat and gave them some scoring opportunities." Senior sweeper Katie Durham-Hammer anchored the Oberlin defense that prevented Thiel from converting any of those chances into scores.

Sophomore Becky Kanuch put home the second and final goal of the contest with a penalty kick in the second half. Kanuch credited the team as a whole in the successful effort. "We did really well together and our first-touches were good," said Kanuch.

"Under the circumstances, we played well," said Marshall. "I think that this game inspired us to play better on Sunday on our own field with grass. So we came back with a bigger win on Sunday."

Sunday's game against Alma College here on Oberlin's North Field pitted the Yeowomen against a tougher opponent. "This game was better since we played better against them and they too were a better team," said Wildman.

"We dominated most of the game, and the chemistry between us was on point," said Kanuch.

Kanuch scored the first goal in the first half off of an Axeen pass. Kanuch scored again in the second half, this time unassisted. First-year Hannah Furgiuele scored the team's third goal assisted by senior captain Maria Skutel. Kanuch then notched a hat-trick with the assist coming from sophomore Kelly Gaughan.

Marshall was very complimentary of her teammates' play during the weekend. "Stepho [sophomore Stephanie White] played on the outside and she made really good runs. She beat her woman every time," Marshall said with a smile. "Meg [junior defender Meg Ansara] played really tough even though she is suffering from a back injury." She noted that sophomore goaltender Julie Noyes' stellar play sealed the team's two shutouts. Noyes added, with great enthusiasm, "We kicked ass!"

Unfortunately for the team, their shutout weekend did not carry over to Wednesday night's game at Adrian College in Michigan. The team thoroughly dominated the game, but the theme was one missed opportunity after another as Adrian squeaked out a 1-0 victory.

A miscue in front of Noyes resulted in an early 1-0 Adrian lead. OC then took control of the game, not even allowing Adrian to cross midfield in the second half.

"We were definitely the better team," said Gaughan. "We should've won. We had corner kick after corner kick late in the game. We had so many opportunities." The Adrian goalkeeper should be commended; there were many chances that the Yeowomen could not follow through on.

"I'm very optimistic about the rest of the season," said Wildman. "If we keep working hard, there's no reason we shouldn't be successful. However, we are in a good conference with good competition. Every game is a battle. We've just got to stay consistent and keep working hard." Currently, the team is 3-4 overall and 0-1 in the NCAC. Their next game is a conference matchup Tuesday at Hiram College.