On a cold and very windy day at Hope College the Kalamazoo College women's soccer team came heartbreakingly close to winning its first MIAA tournament championship since 1999. Sadly, after 90 minutes of regulation, 20 minutes of overtime, and a combined 14 penalty shots the Hornets came up one penalty shot short of winning the championship.
This game was a tale of two halves; with both teams winning the half in which they had the heavy wind at their back. Even though the wind seemed to help Kalamazoo in the first half and Hope in the second to gain momentum and scoring opportunities, still, both teams wound up scoreless after 110 minutes of play.
Kalamazoo led hope in shots on goal seven to four, though the Flying Dutch gave the Hornets a scare twice during regulation with shots off the crossbar. Lucy Mailing had another stand out performance with four saves – including one game-saving save near the end of the first overtime where she came 15 yards outside of the box to block a shot by sliding out horizontally.
Madeleine Chilcote, Madison Moote, and Elizabeth Clevenger were all aggressive for the Hornets offensively with two shots each. Paige Sambor played the role of enforcer throughout the game as she was consistently physical and winning balls.
The championship game went to penalties for the first time since 2009. Both the Hornets and the Flying Dutch scored on three of their five penalty shots which then led to the penalties becoming a sudden death scenario. After both teams failed to capitalize on their first chances in sudden death, Kalamazoo sent its second shot over the goal and Hope responded with the game winner. The Flying Dutch won the shootout 7-6.
"The girls left everything they had on the field," said head coach Bryan Goyings. "Falling in a penalty shootout today should not take away from the team's tremendous accomplishment."
The Hornets can walk away from the regular season with their heads held high as they finished 14-5-2 and received second place in both the MIAA regular season and Tournament championships.