By Kevin Lopez
The Grand Rapids Community College women’s soccer team traveled to Benton Harbor to play Lake Michigan College for an anticipated rematch.
Sadly, the Raiders couldn’t repeat the dominance as the Raiders lost the rematch 2-3 on Sept. 9 and remain winless on the road.
It was obvious from the start that Lake Michigan was looking for revenge and came out of the gate extremely aggressive.
Unfortunately, the Raiders didn’t seem to match their opponent’s energy as they weren’t communicating with one another as well as Lake Michigan.
Within the first six minutes of the game, the Red Hawks scored a goal, but the Raiders responded right back with a goal by Abby Buttermore, a forward from Lowell with an assist from Brooklyn Williams, a midfielder from Rockford.
Despite the goal, the momentum seemed to be on the Red Hawks’ side as they continued to get past the defense, taking 12 shots on goal, while GRCC only attempted six.
Right before halftime, the Red Hawks once again got past the defense, which allowed them to score to take a 1-2 lead.
At halftime, GRCC’s Head Coach Jason Hill was firing up his squad to continue to play hard and bring their energy up and you can feel the energy shift from the players on the field and the players on the bench supporting each other.
The GRCC defense became much more coordinated with improved team communication, allowing the Raiders to keep the Red Hawks at bay with only four attempts at the goal.
Still, despite the low number of attempts, the Red Hawks scored one more goal to make it 1-3.
Buttermore once again scored a goal thanks to a great assist from Samantha Hunting, a midfielder from Ada, making the score 2-3.
The Raiders attempted to score with a lot of great looks just not falling and thus with time running out, the game was over and Lake Michigan won on their home field, 2-3.
This loss puts GRCC’s record at 3-4 overall and a conference record of 2-4 and still no wins on the road.
Coach Hill wants his team to learn from this experience and improve.
“Learn from the loss, it happens,” Hill said “Especially when you beat an opponent, you think you just have to step out on the field. In our conference, no one is scared of anyone, and we came to their field and we knew they were going to come out hard.”
Alena Amaya, a midfielder and team co-captain from Grand Rapids, wants the team to improve their intensity for the next game.
“I think our main focus is just carrying our intensity that we have in practice into the games,” Amaya said. “We definitely came out playing not to our level. I think we came out too easy.”
Buttermore reiterated Amaya’s point about the lack of intensity.
“Nothing is a given,” Buttermore said “I think we came into this game thinking we beat them 6-0 and we can beat them the same way again. I think we need to keep the mindset that from minute one we need to have the intensity.”
The Raiders will be back home to play against St. Clair County Community College at 2 p.m. on Sept. 12 at Mackay-Jaycees Park in Grand Rapids.
