The Loper Women’s Soccer team has been plagued with injuries this year, but that didn’t stop UNK from getting its first MIAA victory on Friday against Newman. The Lopers won the game on a golden goal in overtime.
It wasn’t easy for the Lopers to get their second win on the year.
“Sometimes you just have to grind out results and that was one of them,” said UNK coach Chloe Roberts.
UNK was set up with a corner kick opportunity by forward Perla Navarro to start the second overtime period. Midfielder Cammie Davis made a perfect corner kick right off the head of Loperdefender Angelina Iocca into the net for the golden goal. A golden goal is a sudden-death goal in soccer that ends the game.
“Cammie did a perfectly lofted ball right into the six,” Roberts said. “Angelina got about ten feet off the air it looked like and put a great header in there. It was an amazing goal for us and a great moment for the team that was well deserved.”
The team gathered for a victory celebration after the goal which included injured players hobbling onto the field in their medical boots and crutches to join the celebration. The Lopers have six players with major injuries and 12-14 players on the team have had some sort of injury that has forced them to miss games.
Although there are still multiple injuries on the team, there are some players coming back to play on limited minutes like Davis, Aspen Brandich and forward Kassidy Kirsch.
“We had all of our midfielders a few games ago, Cammie, Kylee (Moore) and Caralee (Legg), were all injured,” Roberts said. “We’ve been managing them and now their fully back. We had Kassidy and Aspen who were both out. Now we’re getting their feet wet a little bit and giving them some minutes. It’s been really good to see them out there and they deserve to be out there.”
Davis scored the first goal of the game for the Lopers with 36:43 left in the second half. The Jets tied the game off of a goal by midfielder Reina Cline with 2:40 left in the game.
The Lopers took on the Central Oklahoma Bronchos on Sunday. The Bronchos came into the game undefeated in MIAA competition.
Central Oklahoma started fast with two first-half goals by forward Katie Gasaway and midfielder Monika McGee. The Lopers played better in the second half, but the Bronchos scored again late on a goal by midfielder Katy Tullis.
“Overall, we came out healthy,” Roberts said. “1-1 on the weekend. I would’ve taken that if you would’ve told me at the beginning of the week.”
The Lopers will be back in action at home this Friday against NW Missouri State and on Sunday against Missouri Western State.
