On Saturday, Sept. 25, at 1 p.m., the Monmouth College women’s soccer team walked onto Prairie Field in Ripon, Wis., with no victories to show for their season. Twenty-four hours later, coach Simon Cordery’s ladies had won not only at Ripon but had also taken an 11 a.m. Sunday match against defending Midwest Conference champion Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis. The Carroll upset completed a 2-0 weekend for the first time in the program’s history and helped goalkeeper Colleen Shaughnessy receive the MWC’s defensive Player of the Week honor. "We’d never won two games before on the same weekend," said Cordery, who has coached the team since it debuted with back-to-back winless seasons in 1994 and 1995. The team had played back-to-back matches 11 times prior to last weekend, never winning more than one of the games. The women’s program has made giant strides the past two seasons, recording a school-record eight victories in 1997 and matching that number in 1998. Entering Saturday’s game, though, the Scots were 0-4-2 against a rough non-conference field and had dropped their only MWC match, a 4-0 defeat at highly-touted Grinnell. Cordery had an idea the team might break through against a Ripon squad that entered the match with a 0-6 record, but the 2-0 win over Carroll, which entered the match with a 4-0 league record, definitely qualified as an upset. "That was a tremendous result for us," he said. The Scots took advantage of a strong breeze behind them to score two first-half goals. Jill Heneghan, a senior midfielder from Godfrey, Ill., found the back of the net 12 minutes into the match and Kim Morris, a junior halfback from McHenry, Ill., put Monmouth up 2-nil with a goal at the 31-minute mark. When the teams changed sides, though, the offensive opportunities stayed with the wind, and that’s when Shaughnessy went to work. The senior goalkeeper from Springfield watched from the sidelines as junior goalkeeper Trisha Larson make four saves in the first half. The workload more than doubled after halftime, as Shaughnessy collected eight saves and countless other touches. "With the wind and the hard ground, a lot of balls flew or bounced over our sweeper," said Cordery, "but Colleen gobbled up a lot of balls. She did a lot of things that don’t show up in a box score." Shaughnessy played the entire game Saturday, yielding only a penalty kick goal 10 minutes into the match that allowed Ripon to pull even at 1-1. She finished that match with 13 saves and shut out the Red Hawks for the final 80 minutes. In the Scots’ other match of the week, a non-conference meeting in St. Louis, Mo., with Fontbonne College, Shaughnessy played the first half of a scoreless tie, again sharing time with Larson. Other stars for the week for Monmouth included forward Bethany Bresley, who assisted on a Heneghan goal against Ripon for a 1-0 lead and then knocked home the key insurance goal in the 79th minute of the 3-1 victory. Jessica Adams and Jennifer Carter also recorded assists in the match. The Fighting Scots’ other starters over the weekend included Julie Kahl, Heather McDonald, Keri Kling, Stacia Wright and Natalie Harris. With a 2-1 MWC record, Monmouth is now very much in the hunt for a top four finish in the league, which would qualify the Scots for the postseason tournament. Favorites to get there at the start of the year and their current MWC records include Lawrence (1-1-1), Grinnell (5-0-1), Lake Forest (2-2) and St. Norbert (2-2). The Scots still have matches left with Lawrence, Lake Forest and St. Norbert and will likely have to beat two of them to reach the MWC tourney. In Monmouth’s advantage is that all three matches will be played at Bobby Woll Memorial Field. Lake Forest visits Oct. 10, and the Scots will be hoping for another 2-0 weekend when St. Norbert and Lawrence come to town Oct. 16-17. |
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