With two weekends left in the regular season, Washburn rose to a three-win streak Oct. 14 against Lindenwood before falling to Central Missouri Oct. 16, placing them in the middle of the MIAA conference ranking at 6th.

To run through the weekend, Washburn defeated Lindenwood 1-0 Oct. 14 off of a point put in by Kate Combs thanks to a corner kick from Ellie Karloff with only nine minutes left to play in the game.

But the victory was short-lived, as Washburn fell to Central Missouri 3-0 Oct. 16. Central Missouri currently holds the top rank in the MIAA, having only dropped a single game in the entire season.

Kaitlin Minnich fell into her old paces this weekend as Washburn drove forward to the end of the season, playing every single minute in both games and putting up 15 saves total, out-pacing both of the opposing goalkeepers. Minnich is Washburn’s lead goalkeeper, followed by Riley Boomer and Riley Trent, and was on the field for the entirety of the previous season and the majority of the current season. Her career goals against average at Washburn is a 1.01, but on the season she has managed to improve to a 0.98.

This season, Washburn women’s soccer has ranked higher in the MIAA than they have in the past several years. A good deal of that can be contributed to Head Coach Chris Jones. Jones is currently in his second season as a coach at Washburn and holds a 13-14-6 record. In the current season, he even managed to have the team maintain an undefeated record at home until the loss to Central Missouri.

With the season winding down, it is almost guaranteed that Washburn will end up in the MIAA Quarterfinals Nov. 2, but there are still four more games between now and then. The team will spend their next two games Oct. 21 and Oct. 23 on the road against Missouri Western State and Northwest Missouri State, respectively. The Ichabods haven’t played against either team so far this season, but Missouri Western is currently tied in the MIAA rankings with Washburn and Northwest Missouri is a few spots below at a 2-5 record in the conference.

At a 8-5-1 record on the season and a 4-3 in the conference, Washburn is looking to outshine their previous season and make a new name for themselves on campus. Only time will tell whether they can get out of the midfield though.