Senior Grace Fischer, left, and first-year Paige Berliner descend on
Denison's Greta Finney. DePauw defeated Denison 4-0 on Sunday.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
For a team that hadn’t lost since mid-September, Saturday’s home game against Kenyon College proved to be a tough loss to swallow.
DePauw jumped out to an early 2-0 lead with goals from senior forward Maggie Campbell and junior forward/midfielder Grace Goodbarn. After that, it was all Kenyon, who scored once in the first half and twice in the second half, putting the Ladies ahead for their first lead of the game.
Senior forward Paige Henry managed to tie it up for the Tigers with a goal late in the second half, making it 3-3 at the end of regulation.
After the game went through two overtimes without either team being able to score, Kenyon (13-2) won the shootout, edging the Tigers (11-2) by a final score of 4-3.
“We all obviously wish we would’ve beat Kenyon,” first-year forward Paige Berliner said. “We all worked really hard throughout the game.”
The Tigers took 27 shots with 20 on goal compared to the Big Red’s 20 shots, withn10 on goal. First-year goalie Sarah Guendert made six saves for DePauw while Kenyon’s Sarah Speroff totaled 17.
Kenyon has appeared to be the Tiger’s toughest competition in the NCAC, having also handed them their first loss of the season back in September.
“I think the two losses will just push us to work even harder in case we see them again in the conference tournament,” Berliner said.
The loss clearly seemed to serve as motivation for Sunday’s match against Denison University (8-4). The Tigers dominated the Big Red on both offense and defense, allowing only one shot on goal in a 4-0 victory that ended Denison’s seven game winning streak.
“The loss on Saturday highlighted mistakes in our game that were easy to fix, which we made sure we corrected for Sunday’s game,” Goodbarn said. “We knew we had to have a big win against Denison to have a better chance at hosting during the conference tournament.”
In terms of conference play, Kenyon (9-1) sits atop the NCAC standings, followed closely by Denison (8-2 NCAC) and DePauw (7-2 NCAC). The Tigers will have their work cut out for them, as they finish the season with five road games. However, only one of the five teams, Wittenberg University, has a winning record in conference play.
“Playing away for the final regular season games will be tiring given that we will play four of our final five games within seven days,” Goodbarn said. “Every conference game is important. We aren’t taking any team lightly because every win and shutout matters from here on out.”
Despite the split this weekend, the season as a whole has looked promising for the Tigers.
“I think we have a great team dynamic,” sophomore forward Addie Ball said. “The strongest part of our game is our passing and I think our game on Sunday really exemplified that.”
But for a program that is used to success, having a winning record during the regular season isn’t good enough.
“We’ll have a lot of determination in the upcoming games because we all want to reach this goal of…hosting the conference tournament,” Berliner said.
This Saturday, the Tigers will travel to Oberlin College, where they will take on the Yeomen (1-9, 1-8 in NCAC) at 1:00 p.m.