The Eastern Michigan University women’s soccer team took a road-trip through Ohio over the weekend, making stops at Ohio University and Kent State University. The Eagles continued to keep its playoff hopes alive with a 3-1 victory over the Bobcats on Friday, but was defeated 3-0 by the Golden Flash on Sunday.
Victory in Athens
Madison Hirsch started the scoring for the Eagles (5-9-2, 2-5-1 MAC) against Ohio, giving Eastern Michigan a 1-0 lead only three minutes into the affair. Ohio’s Mollie Whitacre proceeded to tie the match in the ninth minute and the game would stay level through halftime.
Michelle Rollins gave the Eagles a 2-1 lead in the 55th minute. Redshirt freshman Kristin Nason, who returned from injury against the Bobcats, scored her team leading sixth goal of the season.
The Eagles coasted the rest of the way to secure the 3-1 victory, securing three points on the road to help keep Mid-American Conference playoff hopes alive.
“Every year you have that game where your team runs out of gas and doesn’t show up, I think we had that last week against Toledo. But we had a talk to do the right things to get ourselves back into the conference,” Coach Scott Hall said after the win. “Today’s goals were nice, they came in with positive attitudes and worked their tail off and it paid off.”
Defeat in Kent
Freshman goalkeeper Kaylin Williams earned the start in net on Sunday when the Eagles faced off against Kent State. Williams tallied a career-high 10 saves, despite conceding three goals in an attempt to keep her team in the game against an offensively strong Golden Flash team.
Kent State rattled off an unprecedented 25 attempts at the net, hitting either Williams or the back of the goal on 13 of the 25.
Kent State scored throughout the game. Doni Capehart scored her ninth, 10th and 11th goals of the season, earning a hat-trick against the Eagles who struggled immensely on defense in the latter part of Sunday’s match-up.
Standings
Heading into the final stretch of the Mid-American Conference season, Eastern Michigan is on the outside-looking in to the playoff picture, with seven points.
Ball State University (21), Western Michigan University (19), University of Miami in Ohio (16), University of Buffalo (16), Kent State University (15), Central Michigan University (13), Ohio University (9) and the University of Akron (9) are currently in line for MAC Tournament seeding.
Looking Forward
Eastern Michigan hosts Western Michigan University on Oct. 23 in a much anticipated rematch of last seasons tournament upset that saw the Eagles forced out of the MAC Tournament in double overtime by the Broncos.
The Eagles will then face off against Northern Illinois University and Bowling Green State University in its final two games of the season.
