MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The High Point University women’s soccer team fell on the road at West Virginia by a score of 6-0 on Sunday afternoon in Morgantown, W.Va. The loss drops the Panthers to 1-4-4 on the season.
“I thought we had great energy and played some very good soccer in the first half,” head coach Marty Beall said. “We created a couple dangerous chances and it could have easily been 1-1 at halftime. Unfortunately, we didn’t match that in the second half and that made the difference today. This game really shows the importance of 90 minutes of consistent effort against a quality team. We are all disappointed in the score line but I don’t believe it represents the positives we can take from this game including the opportunity to get many of our players experience against a big program.”
High Point played the Mountaineers fairly even in the first half and went into the locker room at the break trailing just 1-0 after a goal by Kara Blosser in the 22nd minute. HPU put up three shots on goal in the opening 45 minutes and had its best chances offensively early in the contest as both sophomore Sarah Sermonet and junior Taylor Parker forced saves by the WVU keeper in the opening 11 minutes of play.
The Mountaineers took control of the game early in the second half with goals by Kate Schwindel and Frances Silva in the first four minutes of the period to go up 3-0. Schwindel and Silva each added a second goal and Leah Emaus contributed with her first score as West Virginia nothced five second-half goals to win, 6-0.
Junior Jesse May made four saves in 66 minutes of play while freshman Ivy Cocklereece made one save in the final 24 minutes for the Panthers.
With non-conference play concluded for the season, High Point will begin its Big South schedule on Thursday, Sept. 20, when the team travels to Radford, Va., to take on the Highlanders of Radford University at 7 p.m. The Highlanders finished 2011 as the Big South co-regular season champions but lost to HPU in overtime by a score of 1-0 in the two squads’ last meeting.