eated Winfield in a penalty shootout Monday to win their third consecutive game.
Wright City (9-3) defeated Winfield 3-2 in the penalty shootout. Winfield attempted five shots in the shootout. Wright City only needed to take four shots to clinch the win. The game was tied 1-1 at the end of regulation and the two overtime periods.
Wright City needed to win the game, coach Devin Raney said. He noted Winfield and Wright City will be in the same district for tournament play.
“It was a hard fought win,” Raney said. “It was a good team win.”
After neither team scored in the first half, Winfield struck first about six minutes into the second half. Jaden Luckett scored the Winfield goal with about 34:00 left in the second half. Less than six minutes later, Hannah Kendall scored a goal for Wright City to tie the game 1-1. Both teams had chances to score in both regulation and overtime but no more goals were scored by either team.
Raney tabbed goalie Cassandra Reash as the player of the game.
“Cassie was huge in net,” Raney said. “Obviously, player of the game by far. She was just amazing. Both in the shootout and in regulation. There was a lot of chances on our doorstep. But my heart was on pins and needles pretty much the entire time.”
In the penalty shootout, Wright City and Winfield were tied 1-1 after each team took two shots. Kendall scored on the first Wright City attempt to give the Lady Wildcats a 1-0 shootout lead. Bailey Wisniewski scored for Winfield to tie the shootout 1-1 after each team had taken two attempts. Freshmen Paige Kirn and Paige Rees each scored in the penalty shootout for Wright City. Reash stopped two of Winfield’s last three attempts to clinch the victory for Winfield.
The win was Wright City’s third straight win and sixth in their last seven games. Wright City beat Lutheran North 8-0 and Hazelwood East 7-0 last week.
“We have goals that we have set and we want to achieve those goals,” Raney said. “First is we want to be a team that goes into districts with a double digit winning record. So kind of the pregame speech today was you know we’re 8-3 for a reason, let’s make it 9-3. And so the girls came out firing. I don’t like to look at the wins and losses column and kind of focus on that but to a certain extent, we have goals that we want to achieve and part of that is winning. And so that’s what we’re trying to do.”