After losing to the No. 1 team in the conference on Saturday, the Northwestern women’s soccer team responded with a well-played 4-1 win on Wednesday night.
The fathers of various team members sport pink caps at Senior/Parents' Night in support of breast cancer awareness
Wednesday night’s 4-1 win at Dakota Wesleyan featured supreme accuracy by the Raider strikers.
Despite being outshot 24-13, NW put half of their shots on goal in the back of the net.
“Our offense stepped it up and finished really well,“ said sophomore defender Kari Hilbrands. “Defensively, a lot of their shots were from pretty far out and we didn’t give them many chances.”
The scoring started with freshman Michaela Gibson scoring in the 28th minute. Freshman Ashley Williamson increased the lead with a 39th minute goal that was assisted by sophomore Tyler Farr.
Dakota Wesleyan got on the board in the 62nd minute, but Farr responded in the 70th minute by extending the Raiders lead back to 3-1.
Williamson put the Tigers to bed for good with her second goal of the match in the 87th minute. Both of the shots Williamson took ended up in the back of the net.
Junior Ariel Watts saved 12 shots on the night. She currently leads the GPAC in saves for the year.
Senior/Parents’ Night was on Saturday against Hastings, which ended in a 2-1 loss.
The Raiders took 34 shot attempts from the Broncos, and Watts once again was a key player for NW. She had 15 saves on the day.
“[Hastings] is really good team, and we were a little hesitant,” Hilbrands said. “Once we found our feet we started playing really hard. If we had more time we would have put another one in.”
Hastings stormed out to a 2-0 lead after scoring in both the 3rd and 50th minutes. Junior Missy Yorchak brought NW back into the game in the 59th minute with an assist from Farr.
More important than the result was the stance the squad took by sponsoring a pink-out in support of breast cancer awareness. The team had special pink jerseys for the occasion.
“We realized it would be awesome to take a stand for the a breast cancer organization,” Hilbrands said. “We had a chance to support the community outside of campus that supports us.”
NW will play at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Concordia.
