It was fitting on a night where the Spring Arbor University women's soccer team honored their five seniors that senior forward Megan Wegener would grab the game winning goal, just fourteen minutes into the contest to lift the Lady Cougars past visiting Goshen College and to their second consecutive regular season conference championship. The Cougars went on to drop the Maple Leafs 5-0.
Wegener got on the end of a nice left footed service from fellow senior Maegan Smith and nodded it past Maple Leaf goalkeeper Liz Weaver for her fifth goal of the season.
Sophomore defender Courtney Harrison added some insurance on an unassisted blast from a Cougar free kick just two minutes later, and SAU was off and running.
Junior midfielder Ashley DeNio made the score 3-0 when she nodded home another left footed cross, this time off the foot of sophomore Megan Colby to give the Lady Cougars a comfortable lead heading into the halftime break.
After honoring seniors Wegener, Hannah Adams, Braydan Wiles, Maegan Smith and Cheyenne Martinez-Trevino at the intermission, the Cougars went back to work attacking the Goshen goal in the second frame.
Things turned physical in the second half of play, as Goshen was tagged with three yellow and one red card during a twenty minute stretch of the closing stanza.
Not deterred by the physical challenges, SAU tacked on two more markers, one from sohomore Olivia Clark in the 62nd minute and another from DeNio in the 64th. Maegan Smith picked up the assists on both goals.
SAU outshot Goshen 25-4 for the contest.
Goalkeepers Sarah Yancer and Kelly Reszka combined to pick up two saves to secure SAU it's 12th shutout of the season and sixth in Crossroads League play.
The win moved NAIA #6 ranked Spring Arbor to 14-1-1 overall and 7-0 in Crossroads League play, a 2.5 game lead on both Huntington University and Grace College who are battling for second place.
Spring Arbor will face Mount Vernon Nazarene University on Tuesday in their final regular season home match before traveling to Marion, Indiana for the second time in two weeks to make up last week's rained out match with Indiana Wesleyan University.
