Alecia Dimar

Eileen Quinn

It was the best week yet for first-year Tiger women's soccer head coach Norm Riker and his young team. After a season filled with near-misses, close calls and injuries to top players, the Tigers captured a pair of hard-fought victories last week over North Coast Athletic Conference rivals Earlham and Oberlin.

The wins improved Wittenberg to 6-9 overall and 3-2 in the NCAC heading into a brutal three-game home stretch against regionally ranked conference rivals Wooster, Ohio Wesleyan and Denison. A 2-0 win over Earlham on Wednesday and a 1-0 victory over Oberlin on Saturday came despite the continued abscence of standout forward and leading scorer Geri Woessner (Dayton, Ohio/Oakwood), who is sidelined for the season with knee injury, and the team's top offensive freshman, Lindsay Zigler (Upper Arlington, Ohio/Upper Arlington), who is out with a foot injury. Up stepped freshman Alecia Dimar (Louisville, Ky./DuPont Manual), a defender by trade who pushed into the offense on a couple of occasions last week to score her first two goals of the season. The tallies, both gamewinners, were key factors in Dimar's being named NCAC Women's Soccer Player of the Week.

The first, which occurred just after the half-hour mark against Earlham, came on a shot from 25 yards out that went in by the far post. The second tally of the day came from Emily Hiscar (Pataskala, Ohio/Watkins Memorial), who was set up by Dimar to score on a deflection off a corner kick.

The feel-good factor worked again on Saturday as they beat Oberlin in front of a busy homecoming crowd. Dimar got her second goal of the season and the week on a header off a corner kick, with fellow freshman Melissa Gallion (West Jefferson, Ohio/West Jefferson) attributed with the assist. Sophomore goalkeeper Eileen Quinn (Glenbrook, Ill./Glenview South) kept clean sheets in both games and has given up just two goals in eight games this season.