by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Statistically, only Jayhawk Conference leader Butler County has given up fewer goals per game than Kansas City Kansas Community College’s women’s soccer team.
Unfortunately, the Lady Blue Devils have not been able to match those statistics offensively. Limited to just five goals in their first seven games, the Blue Devils scored twice at Neosho County Tuesday only to have the Lady Panthers come from behind twice for a 3-2 win.
The loss left KCKCC 2-4-2 heading into a home re-match with Cowley College Friday at 4:30 p.m. with a men’s game to follow. KCKCC and Cowley battled to a 0-0 deadlock in their first clash.
KCKCC jumped off to a 1-0 lead in the first 90 seconds at Neosho, freshman Cristina Alvarez scoring the goal on a penalty kick. Neosho tied the game 1-1 on a DaNisha Brown goal assisted by Jailene Alarcom at the 14:00 mark but the Blue Devils quickly went back ahead.
“Olivia Lainez, a freshman from Sumner Academy, dribbled through the box and around the keeper for a well-earned goal,” said KCKCC assistant coach Sara Matthews.
But the Blue Devils couldn’t contain Cowley’s DeNisha Brown, who tied the game 2-2 on an unassisted goal at 26:00 and then assisted on what proved to be the winning goal by Kristen Lopez at 29:00.
“We played the second half in their end of the field 90 percent of the time but just could not score,” Matthews said. KCKCC had 17 shots on goal with Neosho goalkeeper Autumn Wilson credited with 15 saves including 10 in the second half. Freshman Alee Alter had five saves in goal for KCKCC.
“Not scoring really wears you down mentally and that’s when you make mistakes and good players capitalize on them,” Matthews said. “We played well except for a couple of mistakes. If we can find our scoring rhythm we can be a dangerous team.”
