SYRACUSE – In a game where both teams played hard until time ran out, Wawasee’s Lady Warrior soccer team hosted and edged West Noble 3-2 Wednesday evening. The visitors were the aggressors in the early part of the match, keeping the ball at their offensive end until senior Diana Ramirez scored in the 18th minute to give the Lady Chargers a 1-0 lead. “I thought the first 20-25 minutes we were a little bit lethargic. We just didn’t seem to have much energy,” said Wawasee head coach Doug Heinisch. “Once they scored, we seemed to wake up a little bit. After that, we got a lot more chances with the ball at their end.” It took Wawasee 16 minutes to get the equalizer from senior Janette Schmidt, who scored from the right side on a feed from classmate Sarah Lancaster. The second half started off a lot like the first in that West Noble kept the ball on its end for quite a while, until Heinisch shouted something to his players about getting chances of their own. “It’s funny how that works sometimes,” Heinisch said. “In the second half, I thought we played better. We were a little more consistent, we moved the ball a little better and we’ve got some pretty talented people up front that, if you give them a chance, if they get an opening, they can do something with it. We had some opportunities that we converted, and that was fun to see.” After Ramirez was ejected for arguing with the referee (she received yellow and red cards on the same call), junior Leigh Ann Schrack gave Wawasee the lead in the 62nd minute, and then gave her team a two-goal lead in the 76th minute. The Lady Chargers had other ideas, and when junior Emily Morren scored in the 77th minute, Wawasee’s defensive intensity picked back up so the Lady Warriors could run the clock out. Wawasee also had a first-half goal waved off on an offside call. “The good news is everybody was attacking, and in that case we got somebody offsides, which happens,” Heinisch said. The Wawasee JV earned a 1-0 win, with Meg Heinisch scoring off a Megan Bray assist with seven minutes remaining. The Lady Warriors will take a 2-0 mark into a match with Westview in Topeka Saturday afternoon.
WAWASEE 3, WEST NOBLE 2 (First Half) WN – Diana Ramirez, 18th min. WAW – Janette Schmidt, 34th min. (Second Half) WAW – Leigh Ann Schrack, 62nd min. WAW – Schrack, 76th min. WN – Emily Morren, 77th Min. Record: Wawasee 2-0
JV – Wawasee 1, West Noble 0 Wawasee goal – Meg Heinisch Record: Wawasee 1-0-1
