River Forest, Ill.- Concordia University Chicago honored the seniors in their last home game of the year versus Loras College. The six seniors honored before the game were Nicolette Johnson, Hannah Johnson, Sandra Acevedo, Jessica Jaimes, Kayla Walker, and Anna Kellar. In the first half, CUC stayed close with the Duhawks early and after one half the score was tied at 6-6. The second half was much more of a slow paced game with both defenses tightening up. However, the Cougars were able to find the net more often to defeat Loras by the final score of 10-8.
Head coach Brian Patterson had this to say on their win and sending out the seniors with two home wins in a row, "This was a gut check game as we weren't playing our best, but found a way to win. I am very proud of my players for digging deep and overcoming of of our deficiencies."
Kellar led the Cougars on the afternoon in her final home game scoring six goals, three groundballs, causing two turnovers, and getting four draw controls.
CUC started early for the second day in a row. Kellar stayed hot from yesterday afternoon's overtime victory and answered the first Loras goal with a score of her own coming off a pass from Margaret Doane to even the score at one a piece. Moments later, lightning struck twice in the same spot when Doane and Kellar connected for another goal to once again even the score, this time at two. For Kellar's third goal and fourth goals of the first half came unassisted and put Concordia-Chicago in the driver's seat for the first time of the game. Another stat sheet stuffer from yesterday's game, Sydney Fuller, showed she was much more than a passer when she scored a goal with under a minute remaining in the half. CUC was not done yet, they would score one more goal in the half coming from the stick of Kellar and assisted by Doane for their third connection of the game to tie it at six heading into halftime.
Starting off the second half, Kellar stayed on fire when she broke the 6-6 tie and helped Concordia-Chicago regain the lead. After some great defense from both teams, a goal by Fuller broke the dry spell for the Cougar offense and put some life into a slow paced start to the second half of play. On the following possession, Michelle Ruan kept the momentum on the side of CUC with a goal to give Concordia-Chicago back the lead. Huge saves from Cougar goalie Krystal Phillips kept the lead intact at 9-8 with seven minutes left in regulation. With exactly four minutes left on the clock Fuller dodged a pair of Loras defenders to add another goal to the CUC 10-8 lead. For the last four minutes Phillips was a brick wall and did not allow another score. The final score ended at 10-8 and the Cougars capped off their first two game win streak of the season to send off the seniors with wins.
Concordia-Chicago (5-11, 4-6 MWLC) is back in action on April 28 at 1:00 pm in Lisle, Illinois, to face off against Benedictine University. That will conclude the 2018 season.
