Aaron Hagen
Daily Globe
WORTHINGTON - Consistency was the key word for Worthington girls soccer coach Emily Ahlquist.
Two days after a heartbreaking loss, the Trojans came up short in a home match against Waseca on Thursday.
“That’s not what we played like on Tuesday, at all,” Ahlquist said. “I don’t know what happened. Our girls know that Waseca is a tough team. I don’t know if they went into it defeated already, but they played like they were defeated already.”
The Bluejays came away with an 11-0 victory.
“All we can do is continue to work on our first touches, continue to work on our positioning,” Ahlquist said. “We were kind of all over the field in our positioning. They were not playing in their positions like they should be. And they were not communicating, it was very quiet on the field. It was a completely different game than we played on Tuesday. The consistency was definitely not there.”
Waseca finished with 28 shots on goal, while Worthington had four.
“They outhustled us, they got to the ball before we did, they controlled the ball, we didn’t put pressure on them,” Ahlquist said. “All in all, they completely outplayed us.”
The Trojans had chances throughout the game, including a free kick from 22 yards out early in the second half. But the kick was just over the crossbar. Ahmitara Alwal had a few good chances earlier in the game, but each time, Waseca came up with the saves.
“We did put together a few nice plays,” Ahlquist said. “Soccer is about consistency and continually putting nice plays together, not just once or twice a half. When we were in our position and playing where we were supposed to play, that’s when those passes started happening and we were communicating with each other. Waseca had a good game and outplayed us.”
Jayde Pederson scored four second-half goals to lead the Bluejays, including three on breakaways in a span of less than three minutes. Taylor Hiller and Jennifer McKay each scored three times for Waseca.
“They killed us on breakaways,” Ahlquist said. “They had some fast forwards and our defense just couldn’t keep up. We weren’t putting the pressure on the midfield to stop through balls. That’s where it starts, in the midfield.”
The Trojans are at Austin on Saturday.
“It will be a tough game,” Ahlquist said. “But we have to keep our heads up and we have to keep pushing. We’re not going to give up.”
Waseca 5 6 – 11
WHS 0 0 – 0
