Women’s soccer shocked

A disappointing weekend for the Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks women’s soccer team brought an abrupt end to their flawless record.

The purple and gold came up short on both Saturday against the Waterloo Warriors (1-0) and Sunday against the Windsor Lancers by a score of 2-1, despite well-fought battles and numerous scoring opportunities.

“[The Waterloo] game was more admirable,” Laurier head coach Barry MacLean stated. “We completely dominated the game; they had one shot on goal and scored. I mean, we could have scored four or five goals but those things happen.”

But the weekend’s most noteworthy game came Sunday afternoon when the Hawks fell to the Lancers. A beautiful goal from Laurier forward Krista Cellucci early in the first half was as far as the Hawks would go.

“It’s definitely a wakeup call,” commented Cellucci. “We’ve been doing so well this whole season and now it’s like we’re in a little rut.”

Laurier’s 1-0 lead was quickly taken away by Windsor defencemen, Sara Kox. A goal from Windsor forward Meresa Brownlie early in the second gave the Lancers the finishing score of 2-1.

“We had a very poor performance today,” added MacLean on Sunday. “We’ve got to regroup now because otherwise we’ll have trouble when we go forward.”

With the help of a particularly busy referee, the purple and gold were denied several opportunities in the second half and were called on four offsides and even a red card on a Laurier defencemen.

“We didn’t deal with diversity very well,” MacLean also mentioned. “We got rattled and didn’t play our normal game.”

The weekend’s losses do not affect the team’s first place standings. With a record of 10-2-0, the Golden Hawks are looking at finishing their regular season with better results.

“We have to pick ourselves up,” Cellucci also commented. “We don’t want to fall off our game once the games really start to matter.”

With only two more regular season games to go next weekend (against York and McMaster), the Golden Hawks are anticipating another competitive post-season.

“When we’re in the OUA (Ontario University Athletics) playoffs we can’t drop off there. [The two losses] are testing our mental toughness and we have to get over this,” Cellucci added.

As the reigning OUA champions, and the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) silver medalists, the Laurier Golden Hawks have high expectations for the rest of the season.

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