RedStorm women fall to Cougars in RSC Championship

Rio Grande Sports Information
     KOKOMO, Ind. - The weather outside was frightful.
     The final result was anything but delightful.
     Second-seeded Indiana University Kokomo grabbed the lead less than a minute into the contest and never looked back, cruising to a 7-1 win over the University of Rio Grande in the River States Conference Women's Soccer Championship, Saturday evening, at frosty Municipal Stadium.
     The host Cougars improved to 13-2-3 and - in the process - punched their ticket to next weekend's NAIA National Tournament with the victory.
     Rio Grande, which reached the tourney title game as the No. 6 seed thanks to a pair of overtime wins, closed its season at 5-11-4 with the loss.
     The game, which was delayed by two hours at the start due to a 2-1/2-inch morning snowfall, belonged to IUK from the outset.
     RSC Player of the Year Keely Hoopingarner scored the first of her three goals - an unassisted marker - with only 42 seconds gone and the Cougars were off and running.
     Morgan Scruggs made it 2-0 just under eight minutes later off of an assist by Skylar Mannon, while Rio Grande picked up its score off of an own goal - a ball originally kicked by freshman Emma Hinkle, but then inadvertently headed in by the Cougars - with 30:38 remaining in the half.
     Any hopes of the RedStorm completing a comeback, essentially, were squashed by two more IUK scores before the intermission.
     Kaiya Bogers had an unassisted goal with 12:43 left before the break and Hoopingarner found the back of the net again exactly eight minutes later to give the Cougars a 4-1 lead at halftime.
     The second half also began with a lightning-like goal when Ashlyn Morefield scored off of a touch by Kelsi Hoot just 57 seconds into the period, while Scruggs scored via an assist by Hoopingarner just over 11 minutes later to make it 6-1.
     Hoopingarner got her hat trick score - an unassisted marker - with 10:12 remaining to close out the scoring.
     The Cougars finished with a 24-8 advantage in shots overall and a 13-6 edge in shots on frame. IUK also had all three corner kick opportunities in the game.
     Kailee Moore had five saves in the win for the Cougars.
     Freshman net-minder Aina Lopez (Barcelona, Spain) stopped six shots for Rio Grande.