ST. PETER, Minn. – The Gustavus women’s soccer team suffered its first loss of the season on its home pitch Saturday afternoon, falling 2-1 to St. Catherine. The Gusties drop to 10-5-1 overall and 7-2-0 in the MIAC, while the Wildcats improve to 10-5-1 overall and 5-4-0 in league play.
“We just started out really slow and gave them confidence from the start and that’s all they needed,” Head Coach Laura Burnett-Kurie said. “They got rolling and it was tough for us to start out slow. I think that we were prepared to start out strong and it didn’t happen. That threw us off and it took us a while to get out of that. It’s tough when they get so many numbers behind the ball defensively and we need to figure out a way to produce results, and unfortunately we were unable to do that today.”
The Gusties played much of the first half in their own half of the field and the offensive pressure by St. Kate’s finally paid off in the 43rd minute with goal by Hannah Okerstrom to take a 1-0 lead at halftime. The Wildcats registered seven shots in the first 45 minutes, compared to three by the Gusties.
St. Kate’s then took a 2-0 lead in the 63rd minute as Okerstrom scored her league-leading 11th goal of the season.
A sense of urgency picked up for the Gusties and they were able to score their first goal of the game in the 85th minute. Coursey Edwards (Jr., Eden Prairie, Minn.) fired a long bending shot from the left side that found its way past the diving keeper for her third score of the season. But Gustavus was unable to net the equalizer in the final five minutes and the Wildcats came away with the upset victory.
After 90 minutes of play, the Gusties and Wildcats both registered 11 shots. Gustie keeper Ashley Becker (Fy., Farmington, Minn.) posted four saves in the loss.
“We just talked about consistency and finding that edge to our game – going into games where we are fighting to win versus just saying, ‘Hey, we’re on top and let’s just roll through this,’ instead of still having that edge and having that mentality where every team in the MIAC can beat anyone on any given day,” Burnett-Kurie said of her message to the team after the game. “We’ve known that for years and now it’s just a different perspective of being, at the time, on top of the MIAC. We just need to find that grit and that edge again.”
Gustavus returns to MIAC play at 3:30 p.m., Oct. 28 at Concordia.