Whitnall Soccer Team Struggles Through Rough Patch

It has been a rocky 24 hours for the Whitnall girls soccer team.

The Falcons dropped a 6-1 affair to conference rival New Berlin Eisenhower Thursday afternoon before traveling to take on nonconference foe Sussex Hamilton Friday night.

The night’s rest wasn’t enough time to get over Thursday’s thrashing.

Whitnall did not generate a consistent offensive attack until midway through the second half, and by then it was too late as the Falcons dropped their second straight game, 4-1.

“The first half was pretty ugly again and we’ve been playing ugly,” Whitnall coach Robert Antholine said. “We’ve been working through some stuff and we’ve had too many gaps and too much spacing.

“I thought we learned some things in the first half that we cut down in the second half. We cut down some of the gaps in the back and the middle. Those were things that were haunting us.

“We’ve got some positive stuff out of this. The second half was much better. We solved some of our issues so it was a good game for us. I’m not happy with the result, but it’s what we should be right now.”

Hamilton (8-2-1) controlled the pace of the game from the start. The Chargers created a plethora of scoring chances in the first half, netting their first goal just over five minutes into the game when Holly Heckendorf received a pass in the middle of the penalty area, spun her defender and rifled the ball into the lower left corner of the goal.

Heckendorf then assisted on goals in the 28^th and 30^th minutes as the Chargers took a 3-0 lead into intermission.

Hamilton quickly squashed any hopes of a Whitnall comeback as senior Jen Jobke scored her seventh goal of the season just three minutes into the second half to stretch the lead to 4-0.

Whitnall (7-4-1) finally was able to control the ball midway through the second half and pose a legitimate threat to the Chargers once they cut down on their defensive lapses.

Senior Dana Steffen scored her 13^th goal of the season in the 65^th minute on a marvelously struck ball from 26 yards out that curled into the top left corner of the goal.

“We’ve been playing pretty well but this has been kind of building,” Antholine said. “We haven’t played well defensively and we’ve played well individually, but not well as a team and now we’re getting into some of the teams that are a little tougher and you have to play as a team to win.

"I told the girls it’s all about the team. It’s not about your stats, it’s not about what you want necessarily; those are your personal goals. Our goal is the team.”

The Flacons resume play Tuesday when they host St. Thomas More.