BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – The Roosevelt women's soccer team faced a tough task against 2012 national runner-up Olivet Nazarene, but the Lakers stood tall against the offensive barrage of the 16th-ranked Tigers in a 2-0 loss at Toyota Park on Tuesday afternoon.
Olivia Cain made 14 saves for the Lakers (5-11-0, 1-8-0 CCAC).
Roosevelt started off strong against the vaunted Olivet side (12-3-1, 7-1-1 CCAC), keeping pace on possession. But the Tigers showed why they are one of the top teams in the country by pushing ahead with frequency and maintaining the majority of possession.
The Tigers had multiple chances go wide, hit parts of the frame or snuffed out by Cain and the Lakers' defense, but eventually the two-time defending CCAC regular-season champions broke through. In the 14th minute Betsy Hetrick sent in a ball from the right side to Jessica Higer, who chipped it past Cain for the game's first goal.
That's how the game would stay despite an aggressive ONU attack. Roosevelt bent but didn't break against the high volume of pressure by the Tigers, staying within striking distance of the program that came within a win of hoisting the NAIA's ultimate prize.
Olivet eventually doubled its lead in the 67th minute, when Higer and Julia Luecke played an impromptu game of ping-pong with the ball amidst a scrum to eventually find Liz Wahl on the right flank. Wahl then sent in a laser across the box and past the outstretched arms of Cain for the 2-0 lead.
Roosevelt created a golden opportunity to cut the deficit in the 82nd minute. Liana Imbrogno sent a ball through the Olivet defense to find Mika Reid streaking up the middle. The speed of Reid helped the rookie striker beat the Tigers' back line for a 1v1 opportunity against keeper Amanda Siciak. But Reid pushed the ball just wide of the right post, narrowly missing a momentum-changing goal.
The Lakers were unable to produce another key chance despite increasing their possession late.
"We wanted to make sure we were in good defensive position, limit the good chances and hopefully catch them on a counter," said Roosevelt head coach Roland Hahn. "The longer it stayed 0-0 or 1-0, we knew we had a chance. I really liked the way we started the game. In the first five minutes we had some good play, got in their end of the field, got a couple of chances that we couldn't capitalize on. Second half was when we got tired, w ore down a little bit, but even then we still created a couple of counter attacks that unfortunately we didn't finish.
"One or two chances change the complexion of the game."
Hahn talked about how his team, a Green and White side full of freshmen and sophomores, has grown over the course of the season to give an effort like the game they showed against a strong ONU team.
"If you go from the very first week of the season to now, I think we have made tremendous improvements," Hahn said. "We've seen individual improvements, we've seen collective improvements as a group. Some of these teams that we're playing at the end of the season, if we had seen them in the early part of the year, we would have been on the wrong side of some lopsided scores. So we're maturing.
"We're a very young team, they've been working hard all season, and now these last two weeks we're going to try a couple of new things, experiment, look at next season, have fun and finish out on a positive note."
Roosevelt hits the road to face Saint Xavier this Saturday at 11:30 a.m.
