WAUKESHA, Wis. - Senior forward/midfielder Delaney Pruitt (Ringwood, Ill.) scored on an aggressive penalty kick in the second minute but it wasn't enough as the Carroll University women's soccer team suffered a gut-wrenching 2-1 overtime loss to North Central College in a College Conference of Illinois-Wisconsin game at Schneider Stadium on Saturday evening.
It was the fifth one-goal loss of the season for Carroll, which dropped to 0-1-2 in the highly contested conference standings and 3-6-4 overall.
Junior forward Lexi Dimovski scored the winning goal on a header at the 98:21 mark for North Central, which earned its first league victory of the season to improve to 1-3 in conference and 5-7 overall.
The Cardinals were outshot 10-7 but countered by maintaining an 8-7 shot-on-goal advantage in the physical battle (in which the two teams combined for 27 fouls).
North Central trailed for the majority of the contest but capitalized on an own goal as the result of a Carroll miscue to tie the game 1-1 in the 70th minute.
Pruitt generated three shots on goal with freshman forward Erika Hess (Green Bay, Wis.) following with two for Carroll, which attempted four corner kicks in the game. Freshman midfielder Joy Hueber (Roscoe, Ill.) and freshman forward Madison Belo (Algonquin, Ill.) each added one.
Junior goalkeeper Christina O' Block (Libertyville, Ill.) registered six saves in playing the entire way for the Pioneers.
"It was an awesome battle and tremendous game but ended with an absolutely hard loss," said Carroll seventh-year coach Susie Foster, who has guided her squad to a berth in the CCIW Tournament the last two seasons. "In this league, most every team is one of the best in the region so every opponent comes ready to play and battles for every inch on the field. Tonight, both teams showed that desire and will to win from beginning to end. Unfortunately, we came out on the losing end this time.
"There was no doubt about our effort so now we just have to focus on the details and continue working hard on capitalizing upon each opportunity. If we can do that, it will help in our execution of the gameplan and prevent any fluke plays from becoming a factor in the game. Even though it didn't work out in our favor, if we make the most of the upcoming games we should have a chance to be in position for a spot in the conference tournament at the end of the regular season. At this point, we just have to play hard and move forward."