GLENDALE, Wis. – The Roosevelt women's soccer team closed out the 2018 season on Saturday evening, standing toe-to-toe with Cardinal Stritch for the game's first 40 minutes until a pair of goals late in the first half led to a 6-0 result in favor of the Wolves at the Bavarian Soccer Club.
The Lakers, who played all season without the services of All-CCAC First Team midfielder and offensive machine Monica Munoz due to injury and faced several other obstacles throughout the fall, finished the year 2-12-1 overall and 2-8-0 in CCAC play.
Kara Jones capped her collegiate career on Saturday, as the senior goalkeeper and team captain made 13 saves to keep the Lakers in the game as much as she could. "Jonesey" goes down as the best keeper in Roosevelt history to date, with 138 saves this season and 425 career saves in 53 matches during her four years between the posts. Jones entered the night ranked 11th in the country in saves per game (8.9) and total saves (125 prior to kickoff).
Also concluding their college careers were captain Brennan Sullivan and fellow seniors Cynthia Gutierrez and Emilia Rogowski.
Roosevelt and Stritch (12-3-0, 8-2-0 CCAC) played to a scoreless stalemate through 40 minutes until the Wolves broke through on Nicole Hawley's opportunistic goal.
Jacqueline Wilhelm scored 34 seconds later to give the Wolves a 2-0 lead into intermission, and two early second-half goals allowed Stritch to build an insurmountable lead before two late tallies concluded the offense for the night.
Despite the final score, the Lakers competed until the final whistle in the face of being shorthanded due to a bevy of season-ending injuries, a situation forcing many healthy Lakers to log a load of minutes with little to no rest over the course of the season's late stages.
The Lakers return 17 players, including Munoz, to compete in the Green and White next fall.
