HCC Sports Information

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

It took 79 1/2 minutes for the Hutchinson Community College women’ soccer team to get on the scoreboard, but once the Blue Dragons did, the flood gates opened.

Freshman Sheena Nicol and sophomore Jordan Downing scored two goals each in a huge surge in the final 10 1/2 minutes to lift the No. 13 Blue Dragons past Hesston College 4-0 in a Region VI West matchup on Wednesday at the Salthawk Sports Complex.

Hutchinson won its seventh match in a row and took a two-game lead on the Larks for first place in the Region VI West with three games to play. The Blue Dragons are 13-1 overall and 9-0 in the region. Hesston falls to 11-3 overall and 7-2 in regional play.

Playing for the second time in five days, the Blue Dragons couldn’t find the save early offensive success against the Larks as they did last Friday with three first-half goals in a 5-1 victory at Hesston.

It was starting to become a frustrating day on Wednesday for Hutchinson. Battling to a 0-0 tie in the first half, the Blue Dragons looked to have scored three goals, but Larks turned them away. Twice, HCC players beat Lark goalkeeper Cassidy Bontrager, but Hesston defenders pulled the ball off the goal line before the ball crossed. Then Nicol ripped a shot that Bontrager barely got a hand on and the ball caromed off the cross bar right back to Bontrager.

With the game still scoreless into the 80th minute, Nicol finally broke the ice when she took at Jordan Smith pass and beat Bontrager for the first goal of the game with 10:30 to play in the second half.

Nicol then scored her second goal of the game 82 seconds later, scoring her 17th of the season from a Madison Pollack assist for a 2-0 lead with 9:08 to play in the game. This was Nicol’s third game-winning goal of the season.

Hutchinson’s late explosion continued when Downing scored a pair of goals within 2:02 of each other. Her first goal came off a deflection after a save to make it 3-0 with 3:28 to go. Nicol had the assist for a five-point game against Hesston. Downing then scored her conference-high 30th goal of the season from a Louise Doherty pass for a 4-0 lead with 1:26 to play.

Downing became the fifth Blue Dragon in team history to score 30 goals in a season. Now with 118 career points (45 goals, 28 assists), Downing passed Jen Rogers for second place on the Blue Dragon career points list.

After going into a strong north wind into the first half, shots were tied 4-4. The Blue Dragons outshot Hesston with the wind in the second half 16-3 in the second out to out-shoot the Larks 20-7.

Sophomore goalkeeper Caroline Howard became the eighth Blue Dragon to reach 10 goalkeeping wins in a season with her second full shutout of the season and the team’s eighth shutout in 2016. Howard made four saves.

Bontrager had 10 saves for the Larks.

The Blue Dragons will play Pratt at 2 p.m. on Tuesday at the Salthawk Sports Complex. A victory over the Beavers would clinch the 2016 Jayhawk West championship.

 

File photo courtesy of bluedragonsports.com