By Nick Beversdorf
Reporter
Bluejay girls varsity soccer suffered another defeat this past Tuesday (April 19) at the hands of Wausau East. A burst of fire and intensity in the second half from a mid-game pep talk wasn’t enough to save the Bluejays. The final score was 2-0, which places Bluejay soccer at the bottom of the conference with a 0-2 record (0-5 overall).
The first half saw the Bluejay girls play with a noted lack of aggressiveness.
“Last night wasn’t our best showing, but improvement is always what we’re after,” comments head coach Stephanie Nelson. “Our first half we came out super flat, not aggressive, and basically just looked confused as to what was going on in general. We went down 1-0 at the 21-minute mark; it was a nice goal, and they were putting a lot of pressure on us and pretty much just passed right around us. There wasn’t much Gabby Schlegel (7 big saves) could have done after that point. Their second goal came almost at the 38th minute. This one was pretty much just us making mistakes and giving the ball right to them.”
A good half-time talk helped instill a renewed sense of vigor in the team, but it wasn’t quite enough to get the ball into the net.
“We had a good talk at halftime and they came out with a whole lot of fire and intensity in the second half,” adds Nelson. “We had a whole lot of girls that went out and kind of played with a chip on their shoulders and gave us a lot of scoring opportunities. East only had three shots total in the second half (14 total shots in the game) and that’s where six of our eight came from and three corner kicks. We put the pressure on, but just couldn’t seem to convert those opportunities to goals. Mae Litschauer and Emily Page really were connecting well with each other and lit a fire with the others to try to get something going!
“It was a hard loss to handle,” Nelson added. “We showed in the second half that we’re capable of at least possessing the ball a lot, but we need to start scoring goals if we want to get out of last in the conference. Hopefully we can put some things together tonight at practice and convert it all into a win on Thursday!”
Bluejay girls varsity soccer will play their next game against Wausau West on Thursday at 5 p.m. at the MARC.