Milwaukee City Wire

The Milwaukee women's soccer team secured a 3-2 win over Northern Kentucky on Sunday at Engelmann Stadium. Lola Wojcik scored the decisive goal in the second half, helping the Panthers maintain their unbeaten record in Horizon League play this season.

Milwaukee improved to 7-4-1 overall and 4-0-0 in league play, extending its regular-season league unbeaten streak to 33 matches (27 wins, six draws). The Panthers have now defeated Northern Kentucky seven consecutive times.

Head coach Kevin Boyd commented on the team's performance: "Northern Kentucky is a good team, and they have some formidable weapons. In the second half, we didn't do a good job of keeping the ball in areas where it wouldn't affect us and we didn't deal with the ball very well. I was not particularly pleased with the second half. I don't think we managed it well, I didn't think we played very well, I felt like we just got frantic, and we should not be doing that at this point in the season. We had to scrap our way back in, and we did, and fortunately Lola got a terrific goal. We answered back and got the win."

The Panthers led 2-0 at halftime after goals from Zoey Pagels and Ashlyn Skinner-Barrett. Pagels opened scoring in the 13th minute with her third goal of the season following passes from Kristina Karlof and Wojcik. Skinner-Barrett added another goal in the 28th minute after receiving an assist from Mallory McGuire.

Northern Kentucky responded early in the second half with two goals—one by Erykah Cornett less than a minute after halftime and another equalizer off a rebound in the 54th minute—tying the game at 2-2.

Boyd addressed these defensive lapses: "The first goal came out of our player heading the ball backwards and it went to their player heading it in. The second came from us completely missing the header – there wasn't even a challenger – we just missed it. We started creating additional problems for ourselves. It got to 2-2 and then it was a dicey game."

Wojcik ultimately scored her fourth goal of the campaign at nearly 70 minutes into play after assists from Skinner-Barrett and Emily Petring, giving Milwaukee a lead they would not relinquish.

The match featured balanced offensive efforts; Milwaukee finished with a total shot advantage of 22-14 while both teams placed seven shots on target. Goalkeeper Bella Hollenbach made five saves for Milwaukee but saw her shutout streak end at more than 478 minutes.

Wojcik led all players with seven shot attempts—a career high—and Skinner-Barrett recorded three points through one goal and one assist. Seven different players have now scored game-winning goals for Milwaukee this season.

Boyd highlighted his team's collective approach: "Part of our value system is who we are as a team," he said. "One of those is we always want to be greater than the sum of our parts. So, we work a lot on the way that we play, what we are trying to do, our intention when we have a ball in certain areas, and trying to get everyone on the same page all the time. That is a daily training topic. It's great that we have that many players contributing."

Milwaukee will resume league competition next weekend against Cleveland State on Saturday at noon Central Time.