ALBION, Mich. - The Kalamazoo College women's soccer team continued MIAA play on the road at Albion on Saturday (Sept. 30). The Hornets moved to 1-0-1 in conference play following a 0-0 tie with the Britons.
"I was proud of our effort," said head coach Bryan Goyings. "We were prepared to play, and I felt we were able to set the pace early on but were unfortunate not to capitalize on a couple of high-quality scoring opportunities in the first half."
Olivia DePauli returned to the starting lineup, joining Elana Mitchell, Maddie Coffman, Ellie Andrews, Savera Rajendra-Nicolucci, Anna Murphy, Holly Bowling, Izzy Kastel, Ruby Hogan, Destiny Garcia, and Amalia Scorsone.
Kalamazoo controlled the pace of play in the first half, outshooting Albion 11-4 and taking four corner kicks to the Britons' two. The Hornet defense was solid, as none of the four Albion shots had a chance of going into the net. Despite this, the score was tied at zero heading into halftime.
The pace of play evened out in the second stanza, but the Hornets were still able to shoot the ball eight times to Albion's six. A critical moment came in the 62nd minute as the Britons got Mitchell out of position by the net, but DePauli swooped in to make a defensive save and preserve the tie.
Coach Goyings added, "Our back line did an excellent job limiting their opportunities, even though we lived dangerously at times. Olivia cleared a ball off the goal line, and Ruby also had a superb game."
Mitchell ended the game with two saves as three of the 10 Albion shots were on net. Kalamazoo totaled more shots (19-10) and corner kicks (6-4), while Albion finished with more saves (9-3) and fouls (12-7).
"Learning for today's result and continuing to improve will be important as we have two more challenging MIAA contests awaiting us this week," said coach Goyings.
Kalamazoo will continue MIAA play with another road game at Hope on Wednesday (Oct. 4), beginning at 7 p.m.