Lady Hounds drop first match of the season

BURLINGTON — Fort Madison’s girls soccer team found itself in an unusual position.

The Bloodhounds haven’t been behind in a match all season, but that changed in Monday’s Southeast Conference match against Burlington, and it proved costly to their conference title hopes.

Fort Madison fell, 3-0, in a battle of conference leaders at Bracewell Stadium.

Burlington (9-1-2 overall, 6-0-1 conference) now has a one-game lead over the Bloodhounds (8-1-2, 5-1-1) in the standings — the Grayhounds have two conference matches remaining while Fort Madison has three. The two teams played to a scoreless draw earlier this season.

The Bloodhounds had given up only one goal this season, and that one tied last Tuesday’s match against Mediapolis. So when Burlington’s Kiara Winski scored eight minutes in, Fort Madison found itself trying to mount a comeback.

“I mean, we haven't played from behind all year,” Fort Madison coach Carrie Burken said. “So I think as far as our confidence and just having composure and being able to stay positive, I think that impacted that.”

The pressure was really on when Burlington’s Hunter Pender scored four minutes into the second half. Isabella Ziegler scored off a corner kick with 14:08 left to seal the win.

Fort Madison’s offense couldn’t find a solution against the Grayhounds. Teagan Snaadt had the only shot on goal for the Bloodhounds, and Halle Menke and Hadley Wolfe combined for three other shots that went wide.

The Bloodhounds didn’t get their first corner kick until 6:40 left in the first half, and only had three for the entire match.

“We couldn't get possession,” Burken said. “Normally, we can figure it out a little bit where we can start having success, and we just weren't able to today. And sometimes that just happens. Burlington looked good tonight.

“I don't know if that was me rotating too many people in and, like, too much rotation, or if we just got tired. We couldn't get anything going. That just happens sometimes. And Burlington does that because they're such a good possession team. They make it hard to keep possession, so I think that frustrated us and made it a little bit more difficult.”

The two teams, rivals for the conference title in recent seasons, always get matched up somehow in the postseason, and Burken knows the Bloodhounds might get another chance to face the Grayhounds.

“So I think that's just the mindset, knowing that if we do run into them in the postseason, it will be here,” Burken said. “ I think that's the big thing. But we'll talk as a team tomorrow. I feel like sometimes it's hard to think about what you can learn from an experience until you have time to process it. So that's the biggest thing that we have to do, is we have to figure out how to learn from this experience and move on from it.”