Girls Soccer: PIZM blanks Lake City

LAKE CITY – Injuries have ravaged both the Lake City and Pine Island/Zumbrota-Mazeppa girls soccer teams.

For the Wildcats, it has been a frantic two weeks as a team full of sophomores has tried to mesh together.

“We’ve had to regroup in the last two weeks,” said PIZM head coach Doug Weincouff.

And in that time, the Wildcats have gone winless in their last six matches, scoring just two goals in that stretch.

“It’s been a long two weeks,” Weincouff admitted.

For the Tigers, things have proven to be just as difficult as injuries have hurt an already young squad.

“For us, I think it’s even worse, because we have such a young team to begin with,” said Lake City head coach Mark Spence. “And we’re missing some key players right off the bat.

“We’re doing OK,” he added. “We’re getting a lot of experience and it’ll pay off in the long run.”

With both teams looking for something positive to happen in Thursday’s Hiawatha Valley League match, PIZM’s offense finally broke through as the Wildcats blew out the Tigers 6-0 at Lake City.

Up 2-0 at halftime, PIZM cemented the victory by scoring three goals in the first eight minutes of the second half.

“We played as well as we have all year tonight,” Weincouff said. “It was a team of all 10th-graders and one senior tonight.”

Freshman Madison House got the Wildcats’ offense going in the 14th minute of Thursday’s match, taking a corner kick from Abby Gushulak and blasting the ball past Lake City goalkeeper Lindy Holmstadt for the 1-0 lead.

With 5 minutes, 26 seconds left until halftime, Gushulak got into the scoring act, beating the Tigers’ defenders to give her team the 2-0 advantage.

“Abby played great in center-mid tonight,” Weincouff said.

Coming out of the break, the Wildcats never relented. In less than eight minutes, Emilee Fredrickson popped in a pair of goals, and Liza Shelquist added a score for the 5-0 PIZM lead.

“We kind of started out the second half pretty slow,” Spence said.

In the 60th minute, a miscue by the Tigers’ defense gave PIZM’s Emma Gunhus a 1-on-1 breakaway, with Gunhus scoring the final goal of the game. The six goals were the most for the Wildcats since their last victory: a 6-0 win against Lake City on Sept. 10 in Pine Island.

PIZM (5-5-2, 2-3 HVL) is on the road Saturday for a non-conference match with Mankato Loyola. The Tigers (1-10, 1-4 HVL) host a four-team tournament Saturday with Red Wing, Winona and Stewartville. Lake City opens the tournament at 10 a.m. against Red Wing, with the second round taking place at noon.

Tags: girls soccer, lake city, sports, prep, zumbrota, mazeppa