By Kevin Lopez
The Grand Rapids Community College women’s soccer team continued their home stretch with a tough loss against the No. 8 ranked team in Division II, Schoolcraft College on Sep 1.
Unfortunately, an upset was not in the cards as the Raiders lost to their overpowering opponent, 2-6.
The Raiders seemed nervous from the start as their usual communication and energy wasn’t there in the first half. Schoolcraft took advantage of this, scoring two goals in the first 10 minutes of the game.
Schoolcraft was more aggressive than the Raiders on offense and defense, taking more shots on goal and refusing to allow any shot at their goal.
Before the first half ended, Schoolcraft was able to score another goal to take a 3-0 lead going into the second half.
There was a noticeable change in energy for the Raiders in the second half as they seemed to be running harder and communicating with each other more in the second half.
This resulted in Abby Buttermore, a forward from Cedar Springs, scoring two goals back-to-back – her fourth and fifth of the season. Buttermore leads the Raiders in scoring.
Despite the momentum shift, the Raiders couldn’t capitalize because of foul trouble and an inablity to stop Schoolcraft from scoring three more goals to finish out the game, 2-6.
Eden Palmani, a defender from Adrian, felt that this was a good experience for the team despite the loss.
“I feel like this game was really important because it set what we can expect for the future for when we try to qualify for Nationals,” Palmani said. “So I think it helped us as a team because it made us look at how we need to be more aggressive and work as a team and talk better.”
GRCC’s head coach Jason Hill agreed with Palmani thoughts about the loss
“This is a very good team,” Hills said. “Schoolcraft is well known, they are a great team,” “But we put goals on them. They had some great goals, but we also conceded on mental mistakes. We still played along with them, which gave us a lot of confidence.”
This puts GRCC at 2-3 for the season and a 1-3 conference record.
The Raiders look to go back to their winning ways when they take on Lake Michigan College at 2 p.m. on Sept. 6 at the Mackay-Jaycees Park in Grand Rapids.
