Yeowomen Defeated

Just as it's hard to make a good PB&J sandwich without enough jelly, it's hard to win games without enough players. The Oberlin women's soccer team struggled in a loss to Denison on Wednesday, after having problems with their bench.

The Yeowomen were unable to get their offense together, and Denison, undefeated and ranked nationally, was relentless, winning the game 0-6, dropping the Yeowomen's record to 3-5-0 and 1-1-0 in the conference.

Out for the Yeowomen were first-year Mara Bretch and juniors Kate Leddington and Becky Kanuch. "It just gives you more depth to have those three players," said Head Coach Jane Wildman.

Bretch was out with a concussion, which she received in the final moments in the game against Lake Erie Sept. 21, when she was accidentally kicked in the head. Leddington was out with a red card received in the game against Bethany Sept. 16. Due to a new rule in the NCAC she had to miss two games because she got the red card for fighting. Kanuch actually played part of the game, but since she was still recovering from a knee injury she was unable to assert her presence on the field as she usually does.

"We're easing her into it," said Wildman. "We're easing her into it. She should be full go on Saturday. We restricted her to not really tackling."

The Yeowomen only had three subs, compared to the 13 made by Denison. This and the rest of the statistics are indicative of how the whole game went.

The Denison offense assaulted the Oberlin defense again and again. The Big Red out-shot the Yeowomen 26 to two, scoring three goals in each half. They also forced 10 corners.

Denison dominated the play in every aspect: physically, tactically, and skillfully. They had 13 fouls compared to one for Oberlin. However, that statistic doesn't tell the whole story. The referee was slow to call fouls, and indeed the most common cries from the crowd were directed at the referee.

"This team, player-to-player and just overall, is a stronger squad than we are at this point," said Wildman. "We're a little disappointed at the score. We wanted to keep it closer, but we needed to play more defensively."

Unfortunately, the defensive stance that the Yeowomen were forced to take kept them from getting good service to sophomore Courtney Stackhouse, who is currently tied as the leading scorer in the conference. "When you're playing defense 90 percent of the time, you're not going to create a lot of chances," said Wildman.

The Yeowomen played a 4-5-1 formation instead of their regular 4-4-2 to try to counteract the offensive dominance of Denison. "I was the only one up front and I thought it was really strange formation," said Stackhouse. "They were a really good team and whatever we did we weren't going to get a lot of chances."

The Yeowomen showed no lack of effort, considering they were up against the best team they will probably play this year. Junior goalie Julie Noyes played a great game, tallying over 15 saves.

"Compared to the way we played this team last year we did well," said Wildman.

Bretch, Kanuch and Leddington should all be back and ready to play this Saturday, when the Yeowomen face Kenyon.