HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Freshman Hadlie Lowe posted her second hat trick of the season and scored the game winner with a little more than 10 minutes remaining to help the Hutchinson Community College women’s soccer team to a come-from-behind 3-2 Jayhawk Conference victory over Kansas City on Saturday at the Salthawk Sports Complex.
Tied at 2-all late in the second half, Kansas City committed a foul deep in the Hutchinson defensive end of the field. Lani Dickinson took a long cross-field free kick near midfield, spun away from a Blue Devil defender and took a couple of dribbles upfield. Dickinson then split a pair of KCK defenders with a perfect through-ball to Lowe on the left side of the box. Lowe finished with a strong left-footed shot on the ground past Kansas City keeper Leah Williams with 10:16 to for a 3-2 Dragon lead.
Blue Dragon goalkeeper Olivia Felix-Cardona made two saves after the Dragons took the lead and secured the victory. Hutchinson improved to 5-4-1 overall and 4-4-1 in the Jayhawk West. Kansas City is 4-5 overall and 4-5 in the Jayhawk East. The Blue Dragons play host to Garden City at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at the Salthawk Sports Complex.
Lowe scored her ninth, 10th and 11th goals of the season with her second hat trick of the season. She also scored her fifth game-winning goal of the season, which ties Jen Rogers for fifth on the Blue Dragon Freshman list for game winners and sixth with Rogers, Alaina Hudson, Stephanie Franz and Sheena Nicol on the Blue Dragon single-season game-winning goals list.
The Blue Dragons rallied from a halftime deficit for the second time this season and for only the sixth time in program history.
Hutchinson trailed 1-0 at halftime as the Blue Devils had a strong south wind at their backs and scored with an Addison Leonard goal in the 11th minute.
The Blue Dragons scored two goals 1:06 apart in the second half to take the lead. Lowe scored from a Jordan Crone assist to the game at 1-all with 34:36 to play. Just 1:06 later, Lowe blasted a shot from 18 yards out for a 2-1 lead. Dickinson and D’Naeya Gray had the assists.
Kansas City took advantage of a quick counter and knotted the score at 2-all on a Kathleen Oelschlager goal with 22:02 to play in the second half.
When Lowe scored her third goal of the second half to give the Dragons a 3-2 lead, that was the 23rd time for a Blue Dragon to score three or more goals in a second half and the 44th time for a Blue Dragon to have at least three goals in a half in team history.
Hutchinson out-shot Kansas City 21-19. Felix-Cardona had five saves. Williams had four saves for the Devils.
Hutchinson is now 5-0-1 all-time against Kansas City.