The end of the double rainbow had a pot of gold for Wawasee goalkeeper Graceanne Kerlin, purple jersey top, who recorded her first career shutout in a 1-0 win over Whitko Wednesday evening. (Photos by Mike Deak)

SYRACUSE – After starting its season with such promise, Wawasee’s girls soccer team needed something, anything, to get it out of its latest funk. Perhaps a 1-0 win over Whitko Wednesday evening showed the team has made some marked improvements.

After dropping six straight, four of those in a shutout, Wawasee flipped the script and held Whitko without a shot on target the entire match. The defensive third of the field was well-maintained by stopper Natalie Winters and sweeper Kendra Doerr, who time and again swarmed and thwarted Whitko advancement and held the Wildcats without a true shot on net.

Wawasee defender Kendra Doerr poked away the ball from a hard-charging Sidney Overmeyer to save a scoring chance.

Whitko’s best chance at goal came late in the second half, the ball skipping around on the damp turf outside the Wawasee penalty area. As Whitko’s Sidney Overmeyer looked to take the equalizing opportunity, Doerr toepoked the ball away from danger. Winters wound up marking the speedy Wildcat wings, notably Overmeyer and Breanna Keirn, and keeping play from turning inside.

“The two have really stepped up in practices and have taken ownership of this team,” Wawasee head coach Tracy Swain said of Doerr and Winters. “They have really taken ownership of what goes on back there, and have the goal that no one will score on us. The adjustment has come in handling the speed of the opponent. Natalie does a lot of the midfield marking and Kendra cleans it up.”

Wawasee’s first clean slate of the season saw goalkeeper Graceanne Kerlin also earn her first career shutout in her rookie season.

In order to get those accolades, the Lady Warriors needed someone to score. That moment came in the second half, and off what looked to be an innocent build-up a long way from goal.

Wawasee’s Sara Pritchard takes one of a game-high 10 shots. Defending is Ella Danner.

Jenny Camarena took one shot in the game, and it was the first shot of the second half. Making some room for herself with a nifty touch into space, Camarena worked toward the goal, and from about 15 yards out, lofted a shot that Whitko keeper Stephanie Baughman couldn’t reach. The goal tucked into the far corner of the net in the 49th minute.

Wawasee had one other golden chance go rocketing off the post in the 74th when Sara Pritchard took a shot from a corner kick service and hit the post with her chance. Pritchard led Wawasee with 10 shots taken, and Olivia Birch added a pair among its 17 shots taken, 13 of those on target that forced Baughman into 11 saves.

“We have been working a lot of overlapping defense and midfield, but we have had issues with defense coming back,” noted Whitko head coach Gary Sims. “This game, we were coming back more, and we still had some issues. I feel (Wawasee) turned to defensive play.

They pulled some of their forwards out and put them back on defense and made it a little tougher for us to penetrate in the second half.”

Wawasee improves to 2-7 overall with one more non-conference match left with Columbia City coming to town on Tuesday.

“We played as well as we could against Goshen with what we had,” Swain said of a 7-0 loss last weekend to the RedHawks, down forward Hannah Lancaster (concussion) and midfielder Meghan Beer (ankle) who were still out Wednesday. Both could return within the next week. “Games like today give us the confidence to know that we can finish a game off. We had segments where we played well tonight, passed the ball well. We had segments where we didn’t pass the ball well. Going forward, this team has a lot of good things to come. A shutout tonight is a big step in the right direction.”

Whitko falls to 1-7 and will host Three Rivers Conference rival Wabash on Saturday.

“We’re learning, half our girls have never played before,” Sims said. “We’re getting there, we are young. We have one senior, and that’s (Baughman). We’re looking for the future.”