Hornets Top Pilots

Kalamazoo College 4      Bethel College 1

The Hornets traveled down to Bethel College in South Bend Indiana and a beautiful late August Friday evening to play an exhibition match against the Bethel College Pilots.  Bethel would control the play early in the game as they came out in a 4-3-3 formation and were looking to play balls in behind the Hornet's backline.  They would find success as the Pilots broke through in the 6th minute drawing Hornet keeper Courtney McCoy out of the goal and slotting a ball across the goal mouth which and on rushing Pilot was able to knock in, staking Bethel to a 1-0 lead.  After the goal the Hornets were able to settle in and began connecting passes and consistently finding time, space, and attacking ideas out wide.  Julia Schroeder was able to out race the defense to a through ball played by Jackie Short and but the ball over the keepers head and off the crossbar knotting the game up at one each.  Shortly thereafter Schroeder would once again get the ball, faked a shot brining the goalkeeper down and played a delicate ball over the keeper and into the goal.  Jackie Short would get in on the first half action as well tallying her own goal.  Both teams subbed liberally and at half the game was 3-1 to the advantage of Kalamazoo.  In second stanza the Hornets would waste not time as Stephanie Verbeek was able to run onto a cross and one timed the ball off the near post and into the goal.  That would conclude the scoring for the evening.  All Hornets that were healthy played sizable minutes and Bethel ran several nice set plays which almost resulted in scoring chances.  Overall it was an effective exhibition for both team as they came away with a number of positives.  For Kalamazoo it was nice to get the win but there were several times Bethel created problems in certain areas of the game which will need to be addressed at practice before the first official game on September 4th.  Just one week away!  The road trip concluded with some pizza and sleep as the vans returned to Kzoo and saw an incredible moonrise, sorry no pics.

GO HORNETS!!!