The Waynesburg University women’s soccer team lost its third straight non-conference game this past Saturday to Marietta College, 1-0. All three of Waynesburg’s losses have been by 1 goal.

Head coach Laura Heethuis, said the defense did it’s job to an extent.

“I thought defensively we did ok,” Heethuis said. “There were a couple of times that we got strung out in the back and it left us vulnerable to their counter attacks and their pacey forwards.  They were able to get through on us and won.”

Waynesburg finished the game with six total shots and only four of them being on goal. None of those  six shots came until the second half. 

“Where we are struggling right now is finding somebody that can put the ball in the back of the net,” Heethuis said. “We need to find a way to be more threatening in the run of play.”

Marietta’s lone goal came in the 53rd minute from Natalie Baker with an assist by Jasmine Hauser. Heethuis said the goal was caused by a defensive error. 

“Our outside back got stung out too high,” she said. “So, we had too much space in between our outside back and our center back and they were able to counter through that space and find time to get the shot off.”

Freshman goalkeeper Autumn Blair made four saves in the game and now has 16 saves this year. 

“She is not afraid to come off her line and be vocal and we love to have that,” Heethuis said. 

Sophomore Meghan Briski also received some praise for her play on the Jacket’s back line.

“She has been one of the key things on the back line,” Heethuis said.  “She was very safe with the ball out of the back, which is a good thing. But we have also been putting her up top in games and she has been able to run at people.”

Out of the 11 Yellow Jacket starters, 8 of them are ones that have been there before. For Heethuis, she is glad to have experience out there, as well as on the bench.

However, since it is still early on in the season, she wants to see more bonding between the younger and older women on the team.

“We have to work on our social piece a little bit more and we need to make sure that our young ladies are willing to work hard for each other,” Heethuis said. “We will get there. It’s a learning curve. We have  some new players and people playing in different positions. We haven’t quite found our rhythm yet.”

The Yellow Jackets next game will the home opener this Wednesday, Sept. 11 against Muskingum at 6 p.m.