Wabash outshot the Quakers 9-8 and nearly pitched a shutout, giving up the only Earlham goal of the match on a penalty kick with 34 seconds left in the game.
“We played together as a team tonight,” said head coach George Perry. “We passed the ball to the open spaces, we challenged their players when they made passes, and we just did the things that soccer teams have to do to win.”
It almost appeared to be another match where the bounces would not go Wabash’s way. Two early shots by the Little Giants were just wide of the goal. But with 15 minutes left in the first half, Wabash pressed the attack.
Freshman Chase Lamm (Brownsburg, IN/Brownsburg) dribbled down the right side of the field, blasting a shot that fired off of the Quaker goalie and straight to the feet of senior forward Carlos Aguirre (Indianapolis, IN/Ben Davis). Aguirre took the rebound and slammed it into the back of the net to put the Little Giants on the scoreboard.
Just over a minute later Aguirre returned the favor. The senior snared a ball in front of the goal and passed it over to Lamm, who fired home his seventh goal of the season to give Wabash a 2-0 lead.
Wabash put the game away six minutes later with some help from Earlham. Pressuring the attack once again, freshman Adam Wynn (Grapevine, TX/Colleyville Heritage) sent a ball into the box. A Quaker defender got a foot on the ball, sending it past the goalie and into the net to give the Little Giants their third goal.
“Adam sent a hard pass into the middle,” said Perry. “When you hit hard shots and hard passes, more often than not good things happen. We did that throughout the match.”
The Little Giants continued to apply offensive and defensive pressure in the second half, frustrating the Quakers’ efforts to get back into the match.
“We wanted to keep applying pressure,” said Perry. “We didn’t want to sit back and let Earlham bring the match to us in the second half. We wanted to continue to work hard. And I think that’s exactly what we did.”
The victory ended a five-game winning streak and a streak of seven consecutive games without a loss by the Quakers.
Wabash is 6-6, 1-3 in NCAC play. The Little Giants will continue their home stand with another conference match on Saturday against Allegheny College, beginning at 1 p.m.