The DePauw women's soccer team earned their third loss of the season in a 4-0 beat down to fifth-ranked Thomas More College Tuesday.
Thomas More improved to 9-0-1 overall, while the Tigers dropped to 5-3-1 on the season.
DePauw struggled on both offense and defense, as Thomas More played dominantly and showing why they were ranked so highly. The game started off with back-and-forth play, but the Saints started off the scoring with a goal in the 18th minute. Thomas Moore senior,Taylor Robinson, headed the ball in off of a corner. Despite the encouragement from the DePauw coaches to increase the energy after the first goal, the Saints kept up the pressure and scored their second goal five minutes later. Ali Whalen beat the DePauw keeper, senior Riley Riordan, to put the Saints up 2-0.
Through the rest of the first half and the beginning of the second half DePauw ramped up its defensive intensity and prevented the Saints from scoring. However, they were unable to break through on the offensive end, as their attacks stagnated against the staunch Thomas More defense.
Thomas More eventually broke through the Tigers defense in the 75th minute with a goal from Josie Perrino, and the Saints added a fourth goal in the 87th to conclude their dominant performance. DePauw was outmatched in the game, as the Saints outshot the Tigers 15-3, with the only two shots on goal coming from junior forward Kathryn Ruark.
The DePauw coaches and players noted that both the solid play from Thomas More and the subpar play from the Tigers contributed the loss. “They had a really strong defense,” said Shaili Kumar, a first-year forward and the NCAC player of the week. “We may have been a little off, and we switched formations throughout the game which can throw things off.”
Head Coach Megan McCormick also thought the Tigers could have played better, and acknowledged Thomas More's strength as a team. “I think we didn't execute the things that we're really good at in the game, and so we got caught playing a style that doesn't suit us,” said McCormick, “I think they deserve the top five ranking and have a lot of firepower coming forward that we had a hard time dealing with defensively and obviously it showed in the scoreline.”
Senior forward Liz Fraser was hopeful that the team would bounce back after the defeat. “It was a great learning experience. You can only take every failure as an opportunity to grow,” she said,“It was very clear that we competed with them tactically and technically, we just couldn't compete the full 90 minutes.”