September 9, 2009

Lady Tiger soccer comes up short against NOC

Battling wet playing conditions and the loss of all-conference midfielder, Carol Rodrigues, the Cowley College women’s soccer team suffered a 3-2 defeat against Northern Oklahoma College-Tonkawa Tuesday at the Soccer Complex in Arkansas City.

Rodrigues suffered an elbow injury in the first half of Tuesday night’s game and did not return to the contest. The extent of the injury is unknown.

The Lady Tigers fell behind 1-0 on Stephanie Fulton’s goal nine minutes into the contest. One game after scoring a school-record six goals, Cowley’s Amber Hernandez tied the score at 1-1 less than a minute and a half after Fulton’s goal.

Northern Oklahoma’s Amber Diener would regain the lead for the Lady Mavericks by scoring with 10:39 remaining in the first half and NOC would take a 2-1 lead into the half.

“We came out a little flat in the first half and they seemed to have a lot more intensity,” Cowley head coach Dane Straight said. “We also had some opportunities in the first half that should have been easy goals but we didn’t capitalize on them.”

Fulton, who assisted on Diener’s goal, would increase NOC’s lead to 3-1 as she scored her second goal of the game with 28:35 left to play. Cowley’s Ciara Corboy tallied her second goal of the season with 21:03 remaining, but the Lady Tigers were unable to tie the game as they fell to 1-2 on the season.

“We played better in the second half but were not able to get over the hump,” Straight said.

A bright spot in defeat was the play of freshman Alexa Wentworth, who helped make up for the loss of Rodrigues. Wentworth assisted on Hernandez’s goal and made several nice plays in the game.
“Alexa did a wonderful job for us,” Straight said.

Kelsea Naegele and Brittany Newbolt assisted on Corboy’s goal, and Katie Ybarra finished with 12 saves in goal.

Cowley will be back in action Saturday when they host Metropolitan Community College-Blue River at 1 p.m.

“I hope to see us play the entire 90 minutes the way we did in the second half (against NOC),” Straight said.