Washburn soccer returned home over the weekend to play Missouri schools. They played a Friday night marathon against Southwest Baptist University that ended in a draw after 110 minutes of play but bounced back Sunday afternoon to pick up a 3-0 win against MSSU.

The Ichabod offense started fast against SBU with two first half goals, but a late second half charge from the Bearcats forced overtime.

The scoring opened 11 minutes in when Josie Rimmer found the back of the net for her third goal of the season to jumpstart the offense. Rimmer was assisted on the play by Olivia Grasso.

Fans didn’t have to wait long for more offense as the Bods scored again nine minutes later. This time the roles were reversed as it was Grasso scoring with Rimmer getting credit for the assist. This was Grasso’s fifth goal of the year.

Not long after, Washburn saw two more scoring opportunities, but they were unable to convert either chance as Grasso fired a shot high and no good and nothing came of Tera Lynch’s corner kick at the 26:45 mark of the first half.

Despite the fast start, Washburn would not score the rest of the game and it was SBU’s turn to become offensive sitting at the 2-0 hole. After Lynch’s corner kick, the Bearcats fired off a series of shots, but to no avail as Bod goalkeeper Whitney Bockover was a wall blocking two shots, saving another while watching a fourth sail high to keep SBU off the scoreboard.

Both sides continued to trade shots throughout the remainder of the first half, although no one could capitalize and Washburn went to the half leading 2-0.

The Ichabods came out firing in the early stages of the second half with shots by Rimmer, Mackenzie Heiman and Ellie Karloff, but they didn’t see the scoring success of the first half as no goals were scored.

Southwest Baptist finally got on the board with 15 minutes remaining in the game, but still trailed 2-1. With under two minutes to play Bockover made, what looked to be, the game ending save although the Bearcats won the ball back, and with 53 ticks of the clock left knocked home a game tying goal to force overtime.

When no one scored in the first 10-minute overtime period, they played an additional ten minutes. After two minutes in Rimmer fired off a shot, but it was saved by the SBU keeper. Washburn’s last effort to win the game outright was from a corner kick from Lynch with one minute left, but nothing materialized, and the game ended in a 2-2 draw.

Overall, Rimmer led the offensive charge against SBU with seven shots and four of those on goal and the early first half score. In the net, Bockover grabbed eight saves.

Sunday afternoon brought rain along with an Ichabod victory. An early goal and a second half surge guided the Bods to victory Sunday afternoon against Missouri Southern to push their record back over to 6-5-1 overall and 2-2-1 in conference play

It was another fast start for the Ichabod offense as they capitalized on an early error near the net. Tera Lynch fired a shot on goal that looked like a routine save for the keeper, but she bobbled the ball. Standing nearby was Josie Rimmer who battled for the ball and was able to tap it home and give Washburn the early 1-0 lead. As the season progresses, fast starts have been an area of emphasis for coach Davy Phillips’ team.

“We have improved on starting off strong as a team but are still improving on keeping that momentum and playing strong for 90 minutes rather than just 45-60 minutes,” Rimmer said.

Rimmer was again involved in a scoring opportunity when she played a great cross shot, but her header was wide. The action then slowed for much of the remaining first half as the only other shot came three minutes before the break from Paige Swanson, but the shot sailed high sending the game to the half with the score Washburn 1, Missouri Southern 0.

Coach Phillips was pleased with the performance of his team’s defense throughout the game, which was key to slowing the MSSU attack.

“They play with two up top, so it was really important for our center backs to make sure they are applying pressure as their forwards receive it and not let them turn because they want to combine with each other. We talked about it in the pregame and they did a great job just applying pressure as they received it,” Phillips said.

The second half finally saw a score with 10 minutes to play off of a 40-yard free kick from Mackenzie Heiman that rattled around in front of the net and was tapped home by Kelsi Smith to stretch the lead to 2-0.

Heiman assisted five minutes later as she played the ball forward to Olivia Grasso who fired from 20 yards out, and with a slight deflection, the ball found the left corner.

It was an offensive day for the Bods as coach Phillips was happy with the improvement from Friday’s game.

“We did a much better job of possessing the ball with our ideas from the back all the way to the front and we were able to go forward more because we had more of the ball,” Phillips said. “The other night we just gave it away too cheaply and [Sunday] we took care of it and we were able to establish possession in our attacking third which helps generate chances.”

The offensive display was impressive as continuous steady rain fell the entire second half making ball control more difficult.

“Because the rain made the ground and ball slippery, we had to pay more attention to our touches keeping the ball closer and passing to feet,” Rimmer said.

Ichabod soccer will take a trip to Oklahoma next weekend to play Northeastern State on Friday and Central Oklahoma on Sunday.