SYRACUSE – Both teams had scoring opportunities, but only Elkhart Memorial’s Kirstin Huber was able to convert. Her goal was the difference in the Lady Chargers’ 1-0 win over host Wawasee in a Northern Lakes Conference girls soccer match Tuesday. Huber’s goal came in the 51st minute, and came when she took an entry pass to the left of the goal. Wawasee goalkeeper Kayla White overplayed the ball, giving Huber just enough of an opening to shoot. Memorial finished with nine shots on goal, to Wawasee’s eight. But Wawasee head coach Doug Heinisch talked about the shots that never came. “It’s kind of the same thing whenever we come up a little short; we’re just not controlling the ball and we spend too much time chasing it,” he said. “We actually had some really good opportunities. Part of it is not converting, but if we’d do a better job of controlling the ball we would have even more opportunities. “It was a disappointing game to lose, because it was close, but it was a good game, and sometimes you get ‘em, sometimes you don’t.” Meg Heinisch, the coach’s daughter, had the best chance for a first-half goal for Wawasee. Memorial goalkeeper Jennifer Lopez strayed too far up the field, and Heinisch had a shot from about 15 yards beyond the penalty box. The wind blew the ball wide right. The west wind, blowing at about 20 mph, hurt breakaway chances for both teams. Playing toward the west goal, passes were knocked down and heading east, the ball drifted downfield and out of range of offensive players. Going in to the wind, Wawasee missed two shots that rolled wide left by less than two feet in the second half. “This was the first game all year where (the wind) has been a factor, and I don’t think we took advantage of it very well,” Heinisch said. “To be honest, I almost thought it was a distraction. I probably got us out of our game a little bit in the first quarter trying to use it to our advantage. Once it died down a little in the second half, and we were going into it, we might have done a little better.” The junior varsity game went to Memorial 2-0 in a match cut short at halftime by darkness. Now 5-10 overall and 0-6 in the NLC, Wawasee closes out its regular season with a visit from NorthWood on Thursday.
ELKHART MEMORIAL 1, WAWASEE 0 (Scoring) EM – Kirstin Huber (unassisted) 51st min.
