Kansas Soccer Sends Seniors, Season off with 3-0 win Over Edwardsville

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kortney Clifton and Whitney Berry combined for three goals in the final Kansas soccer match of the season Friday afternoon, at the Jayhawk Soccer Complex, to lead the team to a 3-0 blanking of SIU-Edwardsville on Senior Day.

The win snapped a six-game losing streak in convincing fashion, as KU dominated the right from the opening kick. Outshooting the Cougars 18-5, half of KU’s shots were on goal, with Clifton scoring on two of her three shots on goal (four shots total). The junior forward scored in both halves for her second multi-goal game of the season and the third of her career.

Berry’s goal was her second in the last three games, as she scored on a penalty kick last Friday at Nebraska.

The match was also the final one for eight seniors. Kaitlyn Cunningham, Erin Ellefson, Lauren Jackson, Erin Lewis, Geneva Magness, Rachel Morris, Caitlin Noble and Katie Williams all played their last matches as
Jayhawks, and were honored in a postgame Senior Day ceremony.

The Jayhawks took control of the game early on, pelting the Cougar defense with several shots in the opening minutes. Clifton finally got KU on the board in the 26th minute when Caroline Kastor passed her a ball
straight down the middle of the box, and Clifton beat the goalie off the dribble for a 1-0 Kansas lead.

Just three minutes later, Berry put the Jayhawks up 2-0 when she took a Lauren Jackson free kick and blasted it in from the right corner of the box.

KU nearly had a 3-0 lead at the half after Emily Cressy had two close calls. Cressy drilled a ball into the post from short range and picked up her own deflected shot and tried to take it in, but goalkeeper Claire Lovercheck came sliding out of the goal to make the save.

However, it wouldn’t be long before KU added in an insurance goal. Just a few minutes into the second half, Kortney Clifton found herself in the box guarded by a pair of Edwardsville defenders. But the speedy forward eluded both players as well as Lovercheck and found her way over the right side of the goal, where she put the ball in for KU’s third goal of the game and the final goal of the season.

The Cougars made two strong late attempts, but goalkeeper Logan Reed, making her first collegiate appearance, helped the score stand up. Reed made a stellar dive to deflect a ball and caught another one squarely in the net to collect her first two career saves. Reed and senior defenders Jackson, Magness, Noble and Williams didn’t allow another shot in the game, and the Jayhawks capped off the 2010 soccer season with a win.