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Soccer Loses First Game of Year

In a heated contest between two unbeaten teams, the Westminster Wildcats fell to the Ladue Rams, 4-0.

Coming on the heels of a 7-0 win over Lutheran North on Thursday, the Wildcats (4-1, No. 5 in the STLhighschoolsports.com small-school rankings) came out flat against the Rams, quickly falling behind 1-0 in the first two minutes. Ladue (7-0, No. 9 large schools) continued to press and promptly added two more goals in the next eight minutes to pad their lead.

The play settled down during the last thirty minutes of the first half with no real chances being created by either side. However, just five minutes into the second half, the Rams again found the back of the net, this time on a header slotted into the top left corner, increasing their lead to four. The Cats pushed back towards the end of the game and were able to create several quality scoring chances, but they were unable to find a goal as they dropped their first game of the 2016 season.

Westminster head coach Dan Legters believed his team lacked the energy and focus they should have had, stating, “We were not ready to play and that’s a mental thing as much as a physical thing. Credit to them. They [Ladue] came out firing and we haven’t seen that all year.”

Despite the loss, Westminster is still off to one of its best starts in school history and the team viewed this game as a way to learn and improve as they continue through the season.

Senior defender, Alex Lawrence, considered the loss “a game to look back on and learn from the mistakes we made. There were plenty of things we didn’t execute on, but we should be able to work on those things and hopefully we can play these guys again in November.”

Ladue and Westminster could face each other in a potential rematch during November in the Class 3 sectional game, should both teams make it that far.

The Wildcat’s impressive four game shutout streak to start off the year was also snapped in the 4-0 loss, but goaltender Brandon Beat, who accounted for all four shutouts, shrugged it off saying, “Yeah, I mean that was a nice way to start off the year, but eventually goals are going to be scored and the best thing you can do is to move past it and start another streak in the next game.”

The Westminster Wildcats next game is against Rockwood Summit at home, September 6.