Women’s soccer suffers first loss, beats Whitman

Sara Levering, Copy editor

Linfield had some beautiful looks in the closing minutes of the match on a mostly sunny Saturday afternoon but ran out of time and fell to the Whitworth Pirates for the first time since Halloween 2010.

Whitworth defeated Linfield 1-0. A freshman gave the Pirates lone goal of the game from 18 feet out.

Size definitely was a factor in this game, Whitworth had some tall players and they had the height advantage, which made it difficult for the Wildcats to get clean shots off toward the goal.

Kendra McSheridan, ’17, and Dani Nurmi, ’17, made some beautiful connecting passes but Whitworth cleared it.

Linfield’s Regan Cox, ’16, Annie Ferguson, ’19, and McSheridan had their work cut out for them by the Whitworth Pirates and constantly came to the rescue for the Wildcats.

With 19 minutes remaining, Emma Vukic, ’16, dribbled her way from midfield and into the box but could not get a shot off with several Whitworth players in the box. Goalkeeper Sarah Bailey, ’19, ended the day with five saves.

Nothing could go wrong for the Linfield women’s soccer team on Sunday against the Whitman Mis- sionaries. Linfield shut out Whitman with a landslide score of 5-0.

Vukic played a part in four of the five goals, scoring two of them. In the 18th minute, she dribbled past Whitman defenders and into the goal.

In the 24th minute, Sami Moellmer, ’19, scored assisted by Vukic. Shortly after, Vukic again set up for another goal, this time the goal was scored by Kyleigh Jandro, ’17, to make the score 3-0.

Vukic scored again, this time assisted by Moellmer to go into half- time with a 4-0 lead over the Missionaries.

In the second half, Marisa Specht, ’16, used her speed to obtain a fifth goal by sprinting up the field and passed it off to Nurmi in the center of the goal, which made an easy shot into goal from five yards out and made the score 5-0. Whitman struggled to find good opportunities to score throughout the entirety of the competition and thus Linfield won 5-0.

Up next, the Linfield Women’s soccer team takes on Lewis & Clark (1-2 NWC) at noon in McMinnville on Saturday, October 3, and Pacific University (1-2-1) at noon in Forest Grove, Ore. on October 4.