By Adam Knoll
Sports Correspondent
The Whippets girls soccer team had a very successful 2015 campaign, finishing the regular season 15-2-2, the girls earned themselves a No. 1 seed and home field advantage to begin the playoffs. Unfortunately, they fell in the second postseason game.
In Whitewater’s first round match against North Fond Du Lac, Allison Sed-mark saved eight shots as the Whippets won a shutout, 8-0.
Showing a spread out effort by the Whippets, who used their talented front line to break through the opposing defense consistently, Autumn Bultman scored in just the second minute of the game, assisted by Rebekah Schumacher.
Holly Hough scored unassisted just nine minutes later and followed up with an-other goal in the 22nd mi-nute, assisted by Alison Quass.
Quass then took her turn, putting the ball in the back of the net in the 28th minute, assisted by Schumacher and sending the Whippets into halftime up 4-0.
Bultman wasn’t done though; she scored two more times in the second half, giving Whitewater a 6-0 lead and inspiring the coach to put some fresh legs on the field.
The shift change helped fuel more scoring drives however, beginning with Milena Maroske who connected on a 25-yard strike. Notching the final goal for the Whippets was Schumacher in the 76th minute of play.
“(I’m) pleased with the way (we) moved and possessed the ball against a very physical squad,” coach Rene Menager said after the game. “We will need that effort in the next round against Grafton.”
He was correct. The Lady Whippets received all they could handle, and more, falling to Grafton in the second round of the playoffs.
Instead of finding their usual aggressive style of offense, Whitewater was held at bay by a skillful Grafton defense that made passing lanes hard to come by.
After a physical and bruising scoreless first half, it was Grafton in the 74th minute that broke the tie with a successful corner kick.
The kick, though held in possession by Sedmark, the Whippets keeper, was ruled to have crossed the goal line, giving Grafton a 1-0 advantage that essentially sealed the win.
“This was quite a disappointing way to end the sea-son,” Menager said. “But it is often the case in soccer matches that one call can make the difference in who wins and who loses.”
Sedmark had 10 saves in the game against Grafton.
