The women’s soccer team will be battling for second or third in conference in its upcoming match against Linfield after defeating Willamette University and losing to both Lewis & Clark and the University of Puget Sound.

All three games were on the road.

The Bucs first match brought them against the Willamette Bearcats on Saturday, Oct. 27.  The Pirates were down 1-0 at halftime but a goal from sophomore midfielder Jackie Day in the 47th minute of the match tied the game.

Senior midfielder Mackenzie Grow scored the game-winning penalty kick with 13 seconds left in regulation to bring the Bucs the win. Freshman goalkeeper Andrea Stump said that Grow was the MVP of the match.

“Obviously she came up big for us in the Saturday game with the winning PK goal, but she also did well holding down the midfield and sacrificing herself for the team,” Stump said.

The Pirates beat the Bearcats 2-1.

On Sunday Oct. 28, Bucs took on Lewis & Clark.

Lewis & Clark scored in the 35th minute and the Pioneers were able to keep the Bucs off the scoreboard for the remainder of the match.

“That was a hard loss for all of us,” freshman forward Tiara Pajimola said. “I think we were fully capable of winning that game, but [Lewis and Clark] is always a great opponent and we played as best as we could against them. We were just trying to play our best game with the weather and being on the road.”

The Pioneers outshot the Bucs 19-5 and, unlike Saturday’s match against Willamette, the Bucs were not able to make a comeback.

“[For both matches] we went down and Saturday we were fortunate enough to be resilient and get a couple of goals for a comeback.” Stump said, “Sunday it just didn’t go in our favor.”

Lewis & Clark won the match 1-0.

“We played against a very physically gifted and motivated opponent. We gave good effort. It just wasn’t our day on the field we weren’t able to pull it off and we lost,” head coach Jael Hagerott said.

On Wednesday the Bucs played UPS in Ellensburg for their final away game of the regular season.

The Pirates lost 2-0. The match was a make-up from the Oct. 6 match when the referees were no-shows for the game.

Had the Bucs won against UPS, they would have remained tied with Linfield for the conference championships. The loss means that they will battle for second when they play Linfield at home on Saturday, November 3rd for their final regular season match.

Contact Whitney Carter at [email protected].