SEMO soccer remains undefeated at home

The SEMO women’s soccer team defeated the Cougars of Columbia College 1-0 on Thursday at Houck Stadium. Local athlete and senior midfielder Emma Brune (Saxony Lutheran High School) put the game away with a header in the 70th minute, coincidentally on her 22nd birthday.

“It felt super awesome, we needed that goal really bad,” Brune said. “When I go up on a header, I just see ball so it was definitely a good feeling.”

The first half of the match was all Columbia as they had complete control for about 35 of the 45 minutes. The Cougars took five shots and four were on goal but sophomore goalkeeper Sophia Elfrink survived the flurry and the Redhawks came out unscathed.

SEMO head coach Heather Nelson said Sophia and the rest of the defensive group did a good job of maintaining the scoreless game.

“I think Soph did a good job on her line and our defense was really solid in terms of respecting Columbia’s talent and not diving in. I think we did a good job of when they were in threatening places, keeping ourselves for the most part between the ball and our goal and waiting to get numbers back to help,” Nelson said. “I think our team defense helped what our defensive unit was already doing.”

The second half was more balanced with SEMO and the Cougars having more equal time of possession. Neither team was able to break through until the 70th minute when Brune found the back of the net. The goal chance was set up by a corner kick in which another local athlete, this time freshman midfielder Justi Nelson (Jackson High School) hit Brune for the header.

Nelson said the team had been working on set pieces and they are lucky to have players with a real nose for the ball.

“We've just been working on set pieces and we have some players like an Emma Brune or a Megan Heisserer that see nothing but ball,” Nelson said. “If they get the right service we know they're going to make some sort of contact, Heisserer almost got one of her own in the first.”

SEMO will return to the road and head to Macomb, IL to take on Ohio Valley Conference member Western Illinois next Thursday. The Redhawks will return to Houck Stadium on Sunday, Sept. 24 at 1 p.m. to continue OVC play against Eastern Illinois.