The MHS kickers fell twice to Valley teams last week, dropping a 6-0 contest to Wis. Rapids on Tuesday and a 5-0 game on Thursday at Wausau West.
West did most of its damage early with three goals in the opening 9:22. They netted another in the last four minutes of the half and closed it out in the 12th minute of the second.
“It was just a frustrating game,” MHS coach Steph Nelson said. “The second half was much better, but it still wasn’t as good as they could play. We were finally generating a little bit of offense, but lost a lot of opportunities because we couldn’t execute the passing that could have built up to a shot or goal.
“We changed our entire formation to help deal with the vast number of injuries that we have. A couple of my players didn’t play the entire second half because we were down 4-0, so it only made sense to try to get them healthy before the playoffs start next Thursday.”
Taylor Hudzinski ended up with 20 saves. West was paced by Savannah Felch (2 g, 1 A) Alex Guenther (1 G, 1 A) and Jessy Wiskofske (1 G, 1 A).
Late rush
The girls trailed Rapids just 1-0 at intermission, and 3-0 with the game winding down, but the Raiders closed fast to win 6-0.
“It was a little bit of a disappointment to say the least,” Nelson said. “We started out okay. After halftime, the girls started playing a little better, but we had to move people around to different positions to compensate for their injuries. We actually had a beautiful scoring opportunity. It was great to see the girls moving themselves and the ball exactly how we work on in practice.
“But then Rapids scored a really nice goal at 76:40 and we kind of fell apart. They scored three goals in 1:16. The girls gave up on themselves. That last 10% was where I wish there was something I could do to help them, but all-in-all, it was up to them to pull themselves up.”
Hudzinski came up with 15 saves. Lauren Anderson (2 G), Jaimie Vanderhei (1 G, 2 A), Kaitlin Hess (1 G, 1 A) and Katelyn Becker (1 G, 1 A) paced Rapids.