JACOB SMITH
SPORTS WRITER
Photo by ALLISON WOODLAND
Homecoming weekend was action packed with Alma athletics. Alumni and fans from all over the state and even the country were in attendance. Football, cross country and women’s soccer all competed over the annual homecoming weekend.
The football team had a dominant 51-16 win over their opponent, Rockford University. Alma wasted no time in the first half, scoring on all 6 of their possessions.
“I was very happy with the way the team played. They came out of the gates strong,” said Head Football Coach Jason Couch.
Austin Spratling (‘20) led the team with 108 yards on 14 carries and scored a touchdown in the process. Quarterback Ryan Stevens (‘20) had two diffrent rushing plays that both led to touchdowns and Dustin Soloman (‘23) and Nathan Goralski (’22) also had one rushing touchdown each.
“It was a fantastic environment between the atmosphere inside of Bhalke and also at the tailgate outside of the fence,” said Couch.
A 25-yard touchdown pass was caught by Joseph Schaefer (‘22) and a 31-yard reception was caught by Chase Hinkle (’20) for a touchdown. These were 2 of Stevens’ 8 total passes of the game.
“The ’94 football team gave the team a pre-game pep talk, which emphasized playing for your teammates, which the scoreboard indicated,” said Couch.
The women’s soccer team defeated Concordia University of Chicago on Saturday with a 2-1 score. The Saturday (Sep.21) afternoon game opened homecoming weekend for the Scots.
Meghan Pfile (‘22) scored her first goal of the season with an assist from Ashley Oldham (‘22). Paige Moore (‘23) also scored for the scots at the 70-minute mark with an assist from Lily Stephan (‘23).
“I think it’s been trending now, our second halves were much better than our first, I think we definitely could’ve kept our shut out, that goal against us came back to us not being as focused on our task as we should’ve been,” said Head Women’s Soccer Coach Megan Gorsuch.
The team gave the Scot’s more of a fight than they expected, but in the end Alma still pulled off the victory.
“I will be honest they showed better in real life than they did in our scout, in terms of their ability to possess the ball and work it through combination play, I don’t think we were expecting as much as they brought especially in the first half,” said Gorsuch. The women’s soccer team looks forward to starting conference play next Tuesday at Trine.
The cross-country team had a tenth-place finish overall at the Knight-Raider invitational on Friday (Sep. 20). The men’s team sent out 13 runners and the women followed with 12 overall competitors. For the second race in a row, Aubrey Hemstreet (’20) led for the Scots with a 12th place overall finish and a 6k time of 19:47.90. Corneilia Gotass (’22) and Haley Trickey (’21) were the next two scot finishers.
Gotass ran a 21:42.60 race time which put her in 56th place overall. Trickey finished with a time of 22:35.20.
The men’s team was led by Sean Pauley (’22) who placed 42nd overall and finished with an 8k time of 28:13.90. Nolan Rowland (’21) was the next finisher for the men’s team; he had a 49th place finish overall with a time of 28:44.50. There were 21 total teams at the meet.
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