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The half that didn’t count
Washington-Mt. Pleasant girls game fully postponed at halftime
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
WASHINGTON — It looked like an excited second half ahead when the Washington and Mt. Pleasant girls soccer teams got ready to head back out onto the field on Monday night, but as it turns out, it’s like the first 40 minutes never happened.
Due to a shortage of officials, the Demons and Panthers had to postpone their contest at the half, forced to start completely over when the game gets replayed later this spring.
The incident happened as the Panthers held a 3-1 lead. Charice Auwerda scored twice in the first half for Mt. Pleasant, once just 10 seconds into the game and once off a penalty kick, following a foul drawn in the box by Tori Wilson.
Wilson had the third goal of the half for the Panthers, which put Mt. Pleasant up 3-1. Washington’s lone goal had come from Maya Murphy, when she equalized it at 1-1 early in the game.
Despite having just one referee throughout the first half, the game played on until just before the second-half whistle.
“Coach (Chris) Davis got a phone call, and then he walked away from our huddle, and he never does that,” said Mt. Pleasant senior Sonya Simon. “It happened two times, and we're like, 'what's going on?'”
The other official in the game mistakenly went to Cedar Rapids Washington, making him unavailable to get to the contest in time, but it was originally thought a game could be played with one official. As it turned out, all four goals scored in the first half were for naught.
“It was crazy,” said Washington junior Isobel Murphy. “But I feel like it might be a second chance for us.”
The game doesn’t have a makeup date set yet, but when it gets played, the two teams will start anew from the opening kick, a welcome twist of fate for the hosting Demons.
“It was really exciting actually,” said Washington senior Angeline Anderson. “Next week, we're getting a lot of our players back, so maybe we can have some redemption.”
Mt. Pleasant stayed at 3-0-1 overall and 1-0 in conference play after the game was called off. Washington is 3-2 overall and 0-1 in the Southeast Conference.
