On Sept. 15, Southeast’s women’s soccer team faced Tennessee Tech for the first Ohio Valley Conference game of the season.

Tennessee dominated shots on goal the first half, but nothing amounted from them. In the 41st minute, senior goalkeeper, Kindra Lierz, left her box to attack and ended up with an injury. Head coach, Heather Nelson, explained the injury is toward her ankle and that she is very positive about a quick recovery.

“I know she’s already been optimistic about it saying that it’s feeling better than it was at the time,” Nelson said. “She is real positive character and we have an excellent athletic trainer, so I know she is in good hands and they will get her back as quickly as possible. The other positive thing is we have depth in our goalkeeping position and [Maddie Gleeson] did a great job tonight. She stepped in and probably less than 60 seconds came up with a huge save for us.”

This injury took Lierz out for the rest of the game, bringing in a substitute in the goalkeeper position. Freshman Gleeson was put in the game with little time to warm up and lots of nerves.

“When she got hurt, all I know is that people started slapping me and someone said, ‘Maddie you’re going in,’ and I said, ’Wait what?’” Gleeson said. “It took me a second to get in the game. I mean, it’s hard going in off the bench. I knew my team had my back and I just kind of leaned on them to get me through it.”

At the start of the second half the Redhawks seemed to come out with more energy and enthusiasm than the first. Nelson said that was caused by tactical changes made during halftime.

“Our biggest difference was we made some tactical changes with how our forwards and our midfielders were positioned and it probably looked like there was more energy, but we put ourselves in a better position with organization that made us a better team in the second half,” Nelson said. “I think as we became more successful tactically you could see our confidence, enthusiasm, and effort continue to grow.”

The upbeat energy didn’t go unnoticed, but a scoreless second half led to overtime. Not long into extra minutes, Southeast’s midfielder Esmie Gonzales and forward Lexi Grote were able to get into the perfect position to score. With Grote’s first ever OVC goal and the team’s first OVC win of the season, the feelings of excitement did not go unnoticed.

“At first, I didn’t know if it was going to go in, so I kind of just watched it, but then everyone started running to me and everyone got excited and it was a really good feeling to know. That was the team’s first OVC win of the season so it was good all around feeling. I took a run straight to the outside of the box and I was following [Gonzales] and I kind of dropped off a little bit and Es played me a perfect ball and I just hit it one time,“ Grote said.

Based on this game, Grote shared what improvements the team needs to make this season in order to get more conference wins under their belt.

“I feel like if we keep playing the way we have been playing we’re going to do pretty good this season,” Grote said.