Pair of Witthauer Goals Not Enough as Statesmen Lose Home Finale

Oskaloosa--Taylor Witthauer (Sr., Vancouver, Wash., Nursing) drove home a pair of goals, but the Statesmen women's soccer team could not get past Culver-Stockton in a 3-2 Heart of America Athletic Conference setback Saturday.

WPU (4-9-1, 1-7-1 Heart) fell to the Wildcats (9-4-3, 3-3-3 Heart) in a Homecoming bout that saw the hosts get outshot 16-8 (10-4 shots on goal).

A stiff wind played a significant role at Drost Field and the Wildcats took advantage of having it to their back, scoring in the 12th and 14th minutes.

Witthauer, playing in her final home game, then took over, beginning with a score at the 23:31 mark.

Ana Medina-Suazo (Sr., San Jose, Calif., Nursing) intercepted a C-SC pass on WPU's offensive end and after a couple of dribbles, she sent a shot into the box, but the ball was held up in the wind.  Fortunately, the ball landed right next to Witthauer, who won it away from a defender and powered a shot into the netting to cut the deficit in half.

Later in the half, Heidi Medina (So., Las Vegas, Nev., Political Science) picked off another errant visitor kick.  She then fed the ball to Isabelle Pietrangelo (Grad., Curitiba, Brazil, Master's of Sports Management) who tapped it to Witthauer and the senior put the ball away to knot the score at 2-2 at the 36:51 mark.  Witthauer currently leads WPU with 13 goals, the highest scoring campaign since 2017.

Unfortunately, with 1:53 before halftime the visitors went back on top and stayed on top.

After an eventful first period, the Statesmen and Wildcats came up empty after intermission, combining for only nine shots (six by WPU).  Georgia Murphy (Sr., Liverpool, England, Wellness and Recreation) and Lilly Cote (So., Sioux City, Iowa, Psychology) both had attempts that were saved by the C-SC goalkeeper, but WPU failed to post another shot on goal the remainer of the contest.

At game's end, Witthauer paced William Penn with four shots, while Murphy produced two.

Madeline Danielson (Jr., La Crescent, Minn., Biology) had a busy day with seven stops between the pipes.

Next Up: William Penn travels to Des Moines Tuesday to face Grand View in Heart play at 5 p.m.