October 19, 1997

WOMEN'S SOCCER SPLITS MWC NORTH DOUBLEHEADER

  MONMOUTH,IL -- The Monmouth women's soccer team finished its 1997 Midwest Conference schedule this past weekend with a split of two matches with MWC North Division teams. The Fighting Scots lost to St. Norbert 2-1 on Saturday and rebounded with a hard-fought 1-0 overtime victory against Lawrence on Sunday. The team's season record now stands at 7-6 and Monmouth ends the nine-game conference slate at 5-4.

The Scots' hopes for one of the four MWC postseason tournament berths were dashed on Saturday with the loss to St. Norbert, which currently leads the league with a 7-1 mark. The Green Knights jumped out quickly to score two goals before the midway point of the first half as the Scots appeared tentative on both sides of the ball. Freshman Jessica Adams (Harvard,IL/HS) accepted an assist pass from Tisha Kimoto (Aurora, IL/Waubonsie Valley) and blasted a shot past the SNC goalie with six minutes left in the first half to pull Monmouth to within 2-1. However, the scoring would end there as neither team could find the nets in the final 45 minutes and Norbert claimed the win.

Sunday's game was another defensive struggle as Monmouth and Lawrence battled it out on Woll Field. For the first time this season the Scots played a 0-0 match in regulation but emerged victorious in the sudden-death overtime period when Kimoto scored her team-high 10th goal of the season in the 93rd minute. Kimoto took a release pass from sophomore midfielder Jill Heneghan (Godfrey,IL/Alton) and ended the match three minutes into the extra period. Kimoto becomes the first Monmouth woman to score 10 goals in a single season and now has 19 career goals, which also stands as the team record for career scores.

"Our playoff hopes may have went up in smoke on Saturday but not our feelings of great optimism for the future," said Monmouth coach Simon Cordery. "This young team has bonded extremely well and has played exceptionally fine soccer. I was happy with the win against Lawrence for the program and for this year's team, which has played so hard and so well. To finish 5-4 in the realigned conference is a tremendous achievement, one we can be proud of and build on for the future."

Monmouth has only one match on the schedule this week. The women play their final home match of the season on Wednesday as they host Dominican University in a non-conference contest at 3:00 PM at Woll Field.