<ite the challenge of practicing in snow this past week, the women’s soccer team came out looking sharp against St. Thomas on Wednesday.
Continuing through two rounds of overtime the game ended with a score of 0-0. Although not the win the Knights were hoping for, a shut out against the St. Thomas Tommies is nevertheless an impressive feat.
This season the Tommies have recorded twenty-two goals while allowing only eight yet the Carleton defense denied any hope the Tommies had at net. “Our defense played an incredible game, they were a brick wall,” captain Mia Zutz ‘10 said. Indeed, even while playing a new formation with three defenders in their back line opposed to four, the Carleton defense was impenetrable.
Within the Carleton defense particularly impressive performances were demonstrated by captain Emma Dobbins ‘10 and goal keeper Beth Ashinsky ’13. Colliding with two forwards early in the second half Dobbins received an ankle injury but, refusing to seek medical attention, valiantly played out the rest of the game.
Ashinsky executed numerous marvelous saves, most memorably diving between the feet of two oncoming forwards to snatch the ball.
The rivalry between St. Thomas and Carleton is especially tense after the results of last season. The Tommies surpassed the Knights as champions of the MIAC. However, both teams advanced to the NCAA championships where Carleton made it through the elite eight round while St. Thomas was knocked out in the first round.
This season it has yet to be seen who will be the toughest team out of the Minnesota conference come playoff time. Although Carleton currently sits in fifth place behind St. Thomas in third, Wednesday’s game proved the Knights remain in position to contend for the MIAC championship and, more importantly, entry to the NCAA tournament.
Also this week sophomore Rachel Foran was named the MIAC Women’s Soccer Athlete of the Week. Foran scored game winning goals against Saint Benedict and Bethel, the goal against Bethel coming in with only 24 seconds left in overtime. The two goals were the first goals of Foran’s career.
This week the Knights only have one match. They will be hosting Augsburg College tomorrow at 1:00 pm on Bell Field.