Washburn soccer faces Missouri Southern, Southwest Baptist

#16 Sophia Sabala slides in to kick the ball scoring her first career goal for Washburn.

This past weekend might have been good in terms of warm and moderately sunny weather, but unfortunately not in terms of the scores of two Washburn soccer matches, one against Missouri Southern on Friday night in which the Ichabods lost 0-1 in overtime, and the second against Southwest Baptist on Sunday at 2 p.m., which resulted in a 1-4 loss.

Although the Ichabods hosted both of the games, they couldn’t achieve a victory that perhaps could have been the jumpstart they need to gain more wins. The Washburn soccer team, however, is not considered an unskillful one. In fact, fans see effort, drive and passion from the women during every game, which serves as the main reason for some people to keep coming to support the squad. Matches are intense and thus interesting to watch.

“[The Ichabods] play well and they have good chances to win,” said Robert Allen, a fan who has been cheering for Washburn soccer throughout its development at Washburn.

The Friday night game was scoreless for more than 91 minutes when both teams kept having unsuccessful attempts to get that precious. Together the Lions and Ichabods combined for 19 shots total. Missouri Southern, however, outshot Washburn 11-8. The single goal was scored by Kelsey Haist from the Lions squad after she received the centering pass and kicked the ball into the lower left hand corner of the net in the second minute of overtime.

“I get a lot of inspiration from the team, especially this Friday night because I saw how much they fought. Even though the score was 0-0 for the most of the game, they still tried as hard as they could,” said Sara Taylor, forward for the Ichabods who got injured after the third game of the season.

The scorebox from Sunday match did produce positive results either as the Ichabods were defeated by the Southwest Baptist Bearcats 1-4. The intensity was even greater than on Friday night as the teams combined for 40 shots this time.

Southwest attacked in 33 shots, 16 of which were on goal. The Washburn goalkeeper Tori Fuglister, however, was able to save only 12. The 33 shots were the third-most in Washburn’s opponent history. The unstoppable Bearcats also received 18 fouls in the match while Washburn was only called for eight.

SBU scored an opening goal in the 10th minute, but Washburn came back and tied with their own goal in the 34th minute made by Sophia Sabala and assisted by Sara Specht. Shortly after, in the 36th minute, Southwest Baptist took the lead again when Elin Hammar scored another goal assisted by Karla Jemison. SBU added two more goals through an aggressive play and outshot Washburn 16 to 1, winning the game.

Washburn will face Fort Hays State this Friday at 5 p.m.