Soccer team ends season with victory over Wildcats

The women's soccer team had not scored a goal in the last seven games before Sunday's match against Kentucky, when the Hoosiers scored three in the first half.\nThose three goals would be all the Hoosiers needed to dismantle the Wildcats 3-1. Junior midfielder Stacey Peterson wasted no time ending the Hoosiers' scoreless run when she put a shot in the bottom right corner of the net on a feed from sophomore forward Kate Kastl, just 9:32 into the game.\nKentucky would answer with its only goal when junior forward Annie Gage scored on a penalty kick after she was brought down in the box by an IU defender with 23:25 left in the half.\nTwo minutes later, IU took the lead for good when sophomore forward Kristen Sprunger stole the ball, passed it to Kastl who then hit junior midfielder Kelly Kram on a breakaway for Kram's fifth goal of the season. \nSophomore forward Jenny Mann added an insurance goal with just nine minutes remaining in the first half when a Kentucky mistake left Mann wide open in front of the net for her first goal of the season. \n"Things finally came together," coach Joe Kelley said. "I don't know why or how, but they did really well. They took Kentucky, who was ranked 10th most of the year, and we just killed them. We absolutely took them apart. It was a good game, we scored some good goals and it was a fun game to watch."\nSunday's game was the first time all season IU has scored three goals in one half. The Hoosiers tallied their most goals since their 3-2 win against Ohio State Sept. 24.\n"I really don't remember it actually," Peterson said about her goal. "I just remember Kate passing me the ball and somehow I slid and just prayed that somehow it would roll in and it did. I was ecstatic." \nPeterson credited the team's physical play as one of the aspects to Sunday's win.\n"That's a big part of our game; being physical," Peterson said. "Joe's stressed that all year and we put it together this game."\nKelley said the difference between IU's and Kentucky's conferences was a major factor in the victory.\n"The (Southeastern Conference) teams are good, but they cannot deal with the physical aspect of the Big Ten," Kelley said.\nSenior goalkeeper Chrissy Heubi played her final game Sunday as a Hoosier. She said the team's easy-going attitude helped the Hoosiers to be loose on the field and come out with a high intensity level.\n"We didn't care about anything and just wanted to play the best we could," Heubi said. "We had talked about beforehand it being the last time we would all play together, and I really think the underclassmen really wanted to play for us. We just wanted to play for ourselves."\nOverall, Kelley said he felt Sunday's performance was a good one in every aspect.\n"It wasn't just the physical aspect, it was the soccer," Kelley said. "We played good soccer today. We moved the ball well; people helped each other out. Defensively we were strong, hard, so it was a pretty good game"