PLYMOUTH, WI – In life, there’s generally two ways to do something; the easy way, or the hard way. Two games into the season, the women’s soccer team hasn’t exactly found the easy route yet.

The Crimson Eagles allowed five scores against Lakeland College in a contest littered with several costly breakdowns and defensive lapses. Saturday’s 5-2 slipup against the Muskies means that PBU has given up a collective count of nine scores over two days. It doesn’t take an accountant to figure out that’s not exactly an ideal way to begin a season defensively.   

Excuses permissible, the Crimson Eagles are still currently plagued with a makeshift roster full of injuries. And amidst their second consecutive loss, PBU did show some promising signs of encouragement.

Senior All-American forward Alexa Hays dropped in her second goal in as many days, connecting on a header off a beautiful feed from classmate Brittany Sparling. Senior Amanda Kirkner got in the scoring column after lofting a shot past Lakeland keeper Whitney England for her first goal of the year. And perhaps most importantly, several first-year players have proven over the past two days that they will be positive contributors the remainder of the year.

Kirkner sank her first goal of the ’08 season just 8:00 minutes into the game to give PBU an early lead. But any false sense of security the Crimson Eagles may have felt quickly vanished as Lakeland responded with three scores of their own soon after to go into intermission with a 3-1 advantage.

Amy Christianson’s second goal of the afternoon just two minutes into the second period gave the hosts a three goal edge. Hays ended up scoring her team-leading second goal of the year with three minutes left to play to cut the margin to two, but Lakeland senior Megan stock erased the effort with a final goal in the final 30 seconds of play.

The Crimson Eagles were out shot 20-6 on the afternoon.

With PBU’s two-day trip to Wisconsin complete, the soccer team will host their first home contest of the season this Wednesday. The Crimson Eagles will go head-to-head with Penn State Berks in Langhorne at 4:00 p.m.