A penalty kick, an own goal, numerous shots off frame, and a rivalry on the pitch provided a Saturday morning matinee of excitement as the 7th ranked Barton Community College women's soccer team prevailed 4-2 in El Dorado over 17th ranked Butler Community College at the BG Products Sports Complex.
Having played to a 1-all draw earlier this season in Great Bend, Barton's victory keeps the Cougars tied atop the league standings at 7-1-2 and on the season while Butler drops to 4-3-3 in conference and 5-3-5 overall.
Next up for Barton is a home 3:00 p.m. kick Wednesday hosting Coffeyville Community College.
With a 20mph south wind at their backs, Butler was mostly the first half aggressor but the Cougars made the most of their opportunities to lead 2-1 at the halftime break.
Butler's pair of goals came via a penalty kick and an own goal, the day's first tally resulting in Kaitlin Erwin netting the awarded kick for the Grizzlies' lone lead coming 5:32 into the contest.
Fiona Jolly had an interesting day for the Cougars accounting for three of the day's scoring. The tale of the freshman's day began by netting a backside header to far post from Ivanna Faria's long cross to tie it up 24:33 into the action. With Barton leading 2-1 in second half play, Jolly was on the unfortunate end of an unlucky deflection resulting in an own goal to tie it up nine minutes into the final frame. Pressing forward and shaking off the fluke play, six minutes later Jolly pounded in Nina Norshie's deflected shot giving Barton the eventual game winner at the 62:29 mark for her 3rd goal of the year.
Ines Mahiaoui put the final icing on the cake with just fourteen seconds remaining, stealing a Butler defensive line pass to weave past two defenders in firing top shelf for her first collegiate goal.
Norshie, the reigning conference and national offensive player of the week, also made an impact in the result giving Barton a huge 2-1 boost into halftime by robbing a defensive pass back towards goal to send in her 11th of the year and 54th career net shaker. A constant focus from opposition's defense, the sophomore played a hand in the eventual game winner by creating space in the box to fire an upper-90 shot as the deflected save from Butler keeper Carla Apodaca doinked off the crossbar leaving Jolly to finish off the attack for a 3-2 lead with 27:31 remaining.
Barton outshot the Grizzlies 19-9 including a ten shot second half advantage, Mio Tanaka protecting the net with six big saves in goal while Butler's Apodaca was also under fire in turning back eight Barton shots.
Barton Scoring:
24:33 Fiona Jolly (2); Assist: Ivanna Faria (2)
39:06 Nina Norshie (11)
62:29 Fiona Jolly (3); Assist: Nina Norshie (2)
89:46 Ines Mahiaoui (1)
Series Notes:
- Barton's first outright victory in last seven meetings
- Butler leads the series in El Dorado 9-3-0
- Butler leads the overall series 22-6-2
Game Notes:
Nina Norshie:
- 54th career goal – 2nd program all-time – 20 behind Shala Giardini's 74 (2009-2010)
- 118 career points – Tied 4th progam all-time with Bianca Barron (2012-2013) – 5 behind Yesenia Garcia's 123 (2007-2008)