The DePauw women’s soccer team opened their season in dominant fashion this weekend knocking off both of their opponents.
The Tigers squared off against Piedmont College on Saturday, and after a back and forth 90-minute regulation game, plus six minutes of overtime, the Tigers came away with a 3-2 victory.
The game started off slow for the Tigers, as they gave up a goal to the opposition 11 minutes into the first half. The game would continue to carry on slowly from there, as neither team was able to add to the score before the end of the first half.
“We had most of the possession and control in the first half,” said senior forward Elizabeth Seewer, “Unfortunately, our only major mistake had resulted in a goal. We knew that we needed to get forward with the ball more, rather than possessing it constantly on our half of the field.”
Following the half, the Tigers came out of the gate strongly, needing only 2 minutes for junior Kathryn Ruark to score the goal that would knot the game up at 1.
Sophomore forward Rebekah Crone would eventually add her name to the score sheet in the 75th minute as she recorded a goal to give Tigers the lead heading into the final stretch of the game.
Unfortunately, the lead did not last, as Piedmont answered once more in the 83rd minute to bring the game back to a draw.
The game could not be decided in regular time as they finished with a 2-2 tie and went into overtime. Luckily for DePauw, a winner was decided in the 96th minute of play as first-year forward Shaili Kumar was able to bury the game winning goal.
Remarkably, this was Kumar’s first collegiate goal ever, a game winner.
“At first it didn’t seem like it was real,” Kumar said, “It didn’t seem real and until the ref finally blew the whistle and the game was over.”
Although the game came down to the wire, there is no denying that this was a promising performance.
“We played extremely well for it being our first game. Our possession and relaxation on the ball was executed very well,” Seewer said. “And our ability to fight and win the game definitely showed up in the overtime portion of the match.”
In their second matchup of the weekend, DePauw touched John Carroll University in a 4-0 blowout. The Tigers outshot the Blue Streaks by a margin of 19-8, and they saw goals from Kumar, Seewer, Ruark and senior Jen Dimos.
“I think that this was great way to start off the season,” Dimos said, “I would say of our out-of -conference teams, both of these teams are going to be some of the better ones, so I think knowing that we can beat two teams who frequently do well at the NCAA Tournament in the same weekend showed that we’ll be able to succeed both in and out of conference.”
The Tigers will look to increase their win streak to three when they travel to Maryland to face Capital College tonight. The game kicks off at 7 p.m. and there will be a live video feed available through the DePauw Athletics website.