by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC
Coffeyville negated a valiant Kansas City Kansas Community College comeback with two goals in the final 7½ minutes in a home 5-3 women’s soccer win Wednesday.
The loss snapped a 5-game KCKCC winning streak and dropped the Lady Blue Devils (4-2) into third place in the Jayhawk Conference behind Cowley College (5-1) and Butler County (4-1-1).
The Lady Blue Devils (7-2) will begin second round conference play at Butler Saturday at 7 p.m. against the team that handed them their only other loss 3-2 in overtime.
“A difficult trip against a good team but we need to find a way to win games when we score three goals or more,” KCKCC coach Shawn Uhlenhake said.
Most frustrating, the goals came in bunches – three in five minutes of the first half and two in the final 7½ minutes.
KCKCC took a 1-0 lead just seven minutes into the game when sophomore Kayla Deaver scored the first of two goals on a pass from freshman Melissa Siegel.
The lead held up until the final 5:12 of the half when the Red Ravens got a goal from Ashley Talley and two from Louise Atkinson.
The Blue Devils pulled even with two goals in a span of just over a minute midway through the second half.
Freshman Connie Hughes got the first goal off a corner kick by Siegel and sophomore Sydney Guerra and Hughes set Deaver up for her second goal with 22:09 left in the half.
The comeback fell short when Atkinson completed a ‘hat trick.’
Breaking loose from midfield, the freshman forward from Middlesborough, England, drilled a shot from 22 yards out with 7:29 left in the game and Talley added her second goal on a free kick with 29 seconds remaining.
“I expected us to come back in the second half,” Uhlenhake said. “This is a confident team that can score goals. But we struggled defensively as a team. We cannot give up five goals and ever expect to win.”