Women's soccer earns postseason spot with win

The women’s soccer team can finally exhale—they’ve qualified.

After teetering on the edge of not being eligible for the Horizon League tournament, the Raiders laid those fears to rest by thrashing Cleveland State 5-1 Saturday evening and clinching a postseason bid.

Prior to the offensive outburst in Cleveland, the Raiders had scored only one goal in their past four matches, leaving points on the table and their postseason hopes in question

“We’ve been outplaying teams but we just haven’t found the back of the net,” senior Lauren Patterson said prior to the Cleveland State game.

It’s safe to say that the Raiders know where the net is now

“We definitely fixed that issue at Cleveland State,” freshman Kalee Thompson said. “We knew if we scored one, we’d score more.”

It was a team effort as five different Raiders scored goals. Thompson scored in the sixth minute and was followed by goals from Natalie Sedlock, Ini Umotong, Emilie Fillion and Adrianna Guerrero.

Due to the lack of offensive output in previous matches, attacking was heavily stressed in practice, specifically working on crosses into the box to find easy chances to score. This week, practice made perfect.

“We’ve been working on crosses a lot,” Thompson said. “We get a lot of them in, but we just can’t finish. We’re still trying to find that combination that works.”

That combination was certainly found in Cleveland despite no change in offensive style. The Raiders are still playing a 4-3-3 formation according to Thompson, and it is now paying off in a big way.

Patterson links the momentum to the camaraderie between teammates.

“This team has the best team chemistry in the four years I’ve been here,” Patterson said.

The Raiders currently sit third in the conference standings and have one final regular season game against Youngstown State this Saturday. While WSU has clinched a spot in the postseason, the Raiders are playing for the highest seed possible in the Horizon League tournament. If WSU finishes at least fourth in the conference standings, they’ll host a tournament game.

“We need to win to get a higher seed,” Thompson said. “We just need to keep playing the way we did at CSU.”