Jenny's Journal: Two big home wins

Hello Kat fans! Sorry this post is so late, school has been a little crazy this week. I have good news, though, so I think it is worth the wait! This weekend was our second weekend of conference play, and we hosted McNeese and Lamar at home. We had a good week of training leading up to these games, with some focus on the play of our back line, and lots of finishing, as usual. We were a little embarrassed after our loss to Northwestern, so we were pumped up to play this weekend, especially since we were at home!

We played McNeese on Friday night. They came into the game with one tie and one win, so they were ahead of us in the conference standings. We were moving the ball around really well, and got our first goal off of a GREAT combination between Amanda Biega, Emily Edenstrom, and Kirby Zak. Our goal came right before half time too, so that was really important! Our second goal came from Tricia Mallory, who put a shot in the far side netting. After building a 2 goal lead, our defense really stepped it up. We played some really good team defense in the second half, and our back line played well as a unit. We gave up a goal, but we won the game 2-1!

A McNeese player was overheard at Chili’s saying “I can’t believe we lost to a team like that.”. Its so funny how teams in the conference underestimate us, and think they will be able to come in to our home field and get an easy win! I’m not complaining though, I’m perfectly okay with being the team that kind of flies under the radar. I think everyone felt really good about that win, and it came at an important time for us.

Sunday, we played Lamar. They came into the game with a 2-1 conference record, same as ours. A win was obviously very important! They came into the game leading the conference in yellow cards, by A LOT. They were a physical team, borderline dirty. And they were all British! I half expected to have tea and crumpets at half time! Okay, maybe not. They might have though. Their physical play backfired on them when they got called for a foul in their own box that led to a penalty kick. Kirby put it in the back of the net, and we were up 1-0.

After that goal, they all started yelling at each other and getting too emotional. As a team, we stayed calm, which I really liked. Nobody got caught up in the emotion or physical play, and that really helped us. Our second goal came from Natalie Johnson. Let me tell you about Nat. She’s all of 5’2”, MAYBE, but this girl seemingly flew through the air to get her head on a high cross to put us up 2-0. It was a really good finish, and one that we work on in practice. Our defense had a good game again, and we got the shutout!

With that win, we are 3-1 in conference, in sole possession of second place. We are traveling to New Orleans tomorrow to play Southeastern Louisiana and Nicholls this weekend! It should be a fun weekend, and if we get two wins we are guaranteed a place in playoffs. I’ll be back next week with an update, hopefully its another good one!

-- Jenny Pence
SHSU keeper