Washington girls unable to overcome Burlington, wind in home soccer match

WASHINGTON — Soccer is hard enough to play 11-on-11 but if it’s 11 against 13 it raises the difficulty. Wind seemed to add players Thursday in a Southeast Conference girls match and a goal scored against the wind clinched Burlington’s 3-0 win over Washington.

“That wind is a game changer for sure,” Burlington coach Jacob Falls said. “It’s like another two players almost.”

The wind made it hard to keep possession, changed the flight of the ball in the air, caused different bounces than normal and wore down the Demons.

“The wind makes it so you’re chasing more than normal, and it gets really tiring,” Washington midfielder Greta Rothe said. “It really does seem like another player.”

Washington went against the wind in the first half. In the second half, Demons goal keeper Alex Murphy prevented a potential goal, leaping to knock the ball away but Yarexia Molina kicked in the rebound for a 3-0 Burlington lead with about 12 minutes remaining.

“It was great to see that easy goal after their great save,” Falls said.

Burlington senior captain Katelyn Weinreich took advantage of a free kick right for a 1-0 lead just five minutes in.

“There was a foul right outside the 18, so we all got set up,” Weinreich said. “I was aiming for the back post but the wind helped me curve it in. Playing with the wind made me feel like I was running faster.”

The second goal came 6 minutes, 48 seconds before halftime when Kevynn Siefken sprinted in from the right wing and connected on a center ball that rocketed into the back of the net.

Washington‘s half with the wind saw a number of chances, but the only time the ball went into the net was when a handball knocked in a corner kick by Rothe, who wears No. 25. At the 28-minute mark a shot hit the crossbar, a minute later an upright. Emma Calderon and Alivia Emry had chances that Burlington goalkeeper Jenna Hentzel knocked away.

“She’s a good stout goalkeeper, but she made some freshman mistakes,” Falls said.

Rothe could hear Burlington coaches repeatedly yelling her number with different instructions like, ’get in front of 25, don’t let 25 have it, keep it away from 25.’

“It motivates me, makes me want to get the ball because they don’t want me to have the ball,” Rothe said. “I want to win the ball anyway but, yeah, that gets me to want to score. I think we were all really tired, and we needed to come together. I wanted to help us do that by playing hard to get everybody else playing hard but we were just really tired. ”

Changing direction much more often than normal wore down the Demons.

“We are slow in transitions, and we’re not taking care of the ball,” Washington coach Steven Caulk said. “We had potentially two goals that would have changed the direction of the game. It is getting frustrating.”

The Demons have had games with attendance issues, but this wasn’t one.

“We have to turn it around,” Caulk said. “We’re getting lost in the middle of the field and getting beat to the ball. At the end of the day, it looked like the other team wanted it more. I’ll leave it at that.”

Burlington has a 6-2 record, 5-1 SEC while Washington is 3-3, 2-4 SEC and plays Mediapolis In Washington Saturday.