After losing to the St. Louis Patriots by four goals, the Wright City Lady Wildcat soccer team responded with wins over Principia and Owensville.
Wright City (5-2) defeated Principia High School 3-2 Friday.
Senior Hannah Kendall scored two goals. Alex Sutter scored one goal. Kendall, Paige Kirn, Emma Blakeburn and Abigail Unterreiner each had one assist. Kendall’s second goal broke a 2-2 tie in the second half with about 10 minutes left. At that point, Wright City’s focus shifted to defending the one-goal lead.
“We had about 10 minutes left. I said let’s change our formations up and kind of see what we can do to basically park the bus,” Wright City coach Devin Raney said. “So I put Paige Rees in goal...And I moved some of my strikers back. And we basically played a 5-2-2-1. It was really odd but we were basically parking the bus. We couldn’t concede anything else on a bad bounce or something like that.”
Wright City followed up their win over Principia with a 2-1 win over Owenville Monday. Kendall and Sutter each scored one goal. Sutter, Paige Kirn and Paige Rees were credited with one assist each.
Raney confirmed the game was tied 0-0 going into halftime. Kendall scored a goal about 10 minutes into the second half to give Wright City a 1-0 lead. With about 12 minutes left, Wright City allowed a goal to tie the game at 1-1.
“They had a corner and they actually snuck it in,” Raney said. “It was a misplay. Went off one of our defenders. It went off of her leg and bounced right to a girl sitting in the box and she just teed up on it. So she scored there.”
Sutter scored the goal to break the tie with about eight minutes left in the second half, Raney said. The goal came after Raney switched formations. He said his goal was to win the game right there.
“I was like I want to win this game now while I can,” Raney said. “So once again, we did kind of that same tactic that we did in the first one and it paid off. Sutter hit one and it was misplayed by the goalie and it ended up in the back of the net.”
Wright City used a similar defensive strategy to the strategy they deployed at the end of the Principia game to preserve the win.
The Lady Wildcats are 2-0 this season in games after a loss. They defeated Fulton High School earlier this season after falling to St. Clair in their only other loss of the season.
“We’re a young program. But that next game, how do you come out,” Raney said. “We came out and beat Fulton. And then we dropped that game that maybe we shouldn’t have against the Patriots, and then we come out and win two games that were hard-fought wins. And I think that speaks to all the girls’ character.”
One day prior to Wright City’s win over Principia, Wright City lost to the St. Louis Patriots 5-1.
Wright City and the St. Louis Patriots were tied 1-1 at halftime. Kirn scored the first goal of the game. Rees and Sutter were credited with assists. The St. Louis Patriots scored later in the half to tie the game 1-1.
The Lady Wildcats were outscored 4-0 in the second half.
“We came out kind of flat again,” Raney said. “We’re short girls. We have eight girls out right now. We scored real quick. Made a couple bad passes which led to bad bounces which led to bad goals. And just kind of started to collapse after that.”
Raney believes a key for the Lady Wildcats is learning how to compete when certain aspects of a game do not go in their favor. The team feels really good about themselves when they win and really bad about themselves when they lose, he believes.
“We can’t get down on ourselves because we’re down a goal,” Raney said. “It was a bad bounce. It was whatever. Ok, now we have to come back and play another 40 minutes. So let’s not dwell on that and let’s get back in there and do something to try to win a game or at least get back in the game.”
Raney said after the game against the St. Louis Patriots that he believed it was a benefit to the team to play Prinicipia the following day. The focus for Wright City was forgetting about the game against the St. Louis Patriots and moving on to the game against Principia.
“Quick turnarounds are always going to be good,” Raney said. “We’ll forget about this game after the Prinicipia game. It’s a loss. It is what it is and we’ll move on.”
Wright City is scheduled to play at Living Word Christian Thursday. They are slated to play at St. Charles West Monday.