There's a football field next door to Buser Family Park.
It's a practice field for K-State Football, but it lines up so that the endzones are next to both of the goals and if you do the math, you can tell that the soccer field is about 20 yards longer.
None of this has ever mattered until Alaina Werremeyer started running on Friday night.
It happened when the Wildcats scored their second goal against Oklahoma, after Maddie Weichel floated a ball over the top to Kyler Goins, who brought it down, shot it through the legs of the Oklahoma goalkeeper and was mobbed by her teammates in front of the Sooners net.
And because of the football field right next door, it was impossible to watch Werremeyer sprint from her own net to celebrate that goal and then run all the way back without thinking to yourself: Alaina Werremeyer just ran like 160 yards to dish out some hugs.
"I definitely wanted to be with my girls, but I'm not doing that again," Werremeyer said. "I chose to be a goalkeeper for a reason."
Just have fun. #KStateSOC x #OnTheRise2020 pic.twitter.com/maZpyy0UKS
— K-State Soccer (@KStateSOC) October 17, 2020
K-State took down Oklahoma 3-0 on Friday night for their first win of the season, scoring just minutes into the match and controlling the game from start to finish. Shae Turner, Goins and the program's all-time leading scorer, Brookelynn Entz, supplied the goals for the Wildcats.
Four years after the program kicked a ball for the first time and three years after they joined the Big 12, the Wildcats took down an Oklahoma team playing in their 24th season.
The Sooners had their chances at Buser Family Park, but Turner's goal three minutes into the match would prove to be the game-winner. Given everything that K-State has been through over the last year, there wasn't much Oklahoma could do to rattle the Wildcats on Friday night.
"This has probably been the hardest week of my coaching career," Mike Dibbini said. "Trying to bounce back from a devastating loss on the road, I couldn't ask for a better result today."
A week ago, the Wildcats lost 7-0 to Texas, the biggest margin of defeat in program history. Defender Avery Green left that match with an injury and was unavailable against the Sooners.
In a normal year, K-State would have kicked off the season with a non-conference schedule that allowed them to build their fitness against a mix of Power 5 and mid-major opponents.
Not in this COVID-19 adjusted campaign.
The Wildcats began 2020 with three games against Big 12 programs ranked among the top-10 teams in the country.
Those matches came after almost two months of practices and scrimmages, of pre-dawn workouts to prepare for a season that wasn't even guaranteed to happen.
And when it did, K-State lost their first four games playing without their full squad against the best teams in the conference. Here's how they responded against Oklahoma on Friday night:
- With the biggest conference win in program history
- The first career goals for Turner and Goins
- The first career win and shutout for Werremeyer
The Wildcats have only reached the halfway point of the 2020 season, but one thing is clear: When they had every excuse and every reason to, Kansas State refused to quit on each other.
"It's hard coming in without non-conference games and we had to go straight into the Big 12," Turner said. "This past week we were just like, 'What do we have to lose? Let's just love soccer again.' That's how we played out here today, because we love soccer and we love each other."
"Let's just love soccer again." 🎙 Shae Turner#KStateSOC x #OnTheRise2020 pic.twitter.com/0ru1M9oXET
— K-State Soccer (@KStateSOC) October 17, 2020
Turner's goal came on a leaping, headed effort from a corner kick, a defender's goal through and through. Goins scored by using her speed to beat an Oklahoma defender one-on-one.
Werremeyer saw her biggest moment of the match arrive when an Oklahoma free kick dropped into the box and was fired on net, only to hit the freshman goalkeeper, perfectly positioned on her line.
"I just stayed on the ball, tried to get as big as possible and hoped that it was going to hit me," she said. "I'm just so proud of the girls in front of me. They worked their butts off today."
Goins joined K-State as a transfer from Arkansas in November but saw her spring season and most of the summer wiped out due to COVID-19.
When her first goal was called off, she was disappointed but not discouraged.
"That was going to be my first goal and it was going to be so lit," she said. "I thought that was probably the only one I was going to get, but to come back and get it again feels great. I came from Arkansas where I wasn't playing at all. Now I'm starting and I got my first goal. It's big."
The final goal of the night, the one that erased any doubt that K-State was leaving with the third Big 12 win in program history on Friday night, belonged to Entz.
"This is something our team hasn't ever done before," she said. "We don't know how to finish games and we did today. We talked in the locker room at halftime about how 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in soccer. We wanted to come out and get that next goal."
When Silke Bonnen whipped a free kick into the box, Oklahoma was called for a handball.
Entz stepped up to the penalty spot and beat the goalkeeper top right, followed by the kind of low-key celebration that made it very clear the ball was always going in the back of the net.
"I'm supposed to make those," she said. "I didn't really feel like I needed to celebrate."
It was different story later that night, when Dibbini gathered his team after a win that happened because an experienced defender, a true freshman goalkeeper, a transfer forward and the program's all-time leading goal scorer have the only thing in common that counts.
Gotta love it. ⚽#KStateSOC x Family pic.twitter.com/LJwjRxzodf
— K-State Soccer (@KStateSOC) October 17, 2020
"This is what happens when you love the game, you love the ball and you love each other," he said. "And when you love Avery Green."
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