My cheeks may have been frozen to the metal bleachers today, but I can assure you the besties came out on (prairie) fire. Shot after shot, the first half was dominated by the besties and their ruthless offensive attack. As if she had somewhere to be, Senior Lydia Mitchell, pushes the ball right past the 6’0” tall goal keep from Lake Forrest. It was quite a sight to see. And so we entered into the end of the first half up 1-0 thanks to shut down defense and pure grit.

The second half, was a sight to see. Lake forest came out hot, and that’s about all I’ll write about them. They scored, but it wasn’t as cool as you’d think. It was actually a bit rude of them to do that, and in the words of basketball legend Michael Jordan, the besties “took that personally.”

Our women got aggressive. With the Midwest Conference title on the line, the gal from Graz, Louise, set the tempo and played tough ball even leading the opposing fans to say, “she’s tough.” That type of leadership must be contagious because our friend Autumn decided she wanted to join in on the action. Playing the wing and running back and forth, setting up deep runs and shutting down the foresters offensive attacks, we end regulation tied 1-1.

It’s unfair how tall the other goalie is

Anonymous knox college fan

OT 1 was exciting because it meant we got to watch more soccerball. Besides passing and kicking and using our noggins, the real star of OT was the father of our bestie Michaela Thawley who was the heckler of the game. Missed call after missed cal you could hear loud and proud “NOPE SIR THAT WAS WRONG.” On every corner kick you could hear “pop pop pop it in!” It really made this super duper fan proud. We end OT1 tied.

Here we go. OT 2. Gotta push up. Gotta get tough and keep our heads on a swivel. And that we did. It was back and forth for 8:30 minutes, and in the last 1:30, the besties said “okay this is lame. Let’s win this B.” Louise took a nice through ball with only the goal keeper to stop her. ‘Would the goalie drop it like she had multiple times in the first half?’ ‘Would Louise get cheeky and chip it over her?’ These thoughts ran through my mind. The ball inching closer to the net, there was an unfortunate collision between our bestie and the goalkeeper. Are PKs in our future? A tie would be annoying. As fate would have it, the ball bounced out of the keepers hands in right onto the foot of one of our besties who lays it into the net with 0:58 left in OT2!

They did it. Midwest conference champions. There was no doubt in my mind that they would do it. We at PFSN are so very proud of the hard work these women have put into the season of late and we know that it’s only the start as they begin to focus on tourney time.

That was a good team effort.

Assistant Athletic Director Lexie Vernon