Steigleder provides Iowa City West a double-overtime winner

DES MOINES - Iowa City West found a way to avoid the Russian roulette of penalty kicks when Regan Steigleder blasted a shot that the Waukee keeper couldn't handle and West won, 2-1, in double overtime.

The winning shot came in the 92nd minute and advanced West into today's semifinal against No. 9 Johnston. West (18-2) was the only Mississippi Valley Conference survivor of the quarterfinals.

'There was a good ball into Emma Cooper and she sent it back,” Steigleder said. 'I think (the goalie) tried to punch it away, but it went up in the air and behind her. I don't know what happened really. Everyone just went crazy. It was a little bit of a relief that we put it away.”

'We played the ball forward and Regan was wide open at the top of the box, and I laid it off and she had a fantastic shot to win the game for us,” Cooper said. 'And I'm thankful because I'm so tired.

'The ball is wet and she hit it super hard at (the keeper) with a lot of pace.”

The ball bounced off her hands and just cleared the goal line, but it took a couple seconds for the referee to acknowledge the score. Then pandemonium.

West sophomore Payton Pottratz broke the scoreless tie in the 55th minute with a blast from 25 yards out.

'We had a lot of possession so we were passing it around the midfield, and Regan was moving it forward. There were lots of girls on her so I went to the right side of her and I even said to her, ‘Regan pass. I can shoot.' She passed it with one touch and I struck it into the upper 90.”

But Waukee struck back in the 63rd minute with a similar long shot by Maya Olson. In the final minutes of regulation West looked tired and had trouble keeping possession. But in the overtimes the Women of Troy were dynamic again.

'After our first goal we stepped back a little bit,” Cooper said. 'Our work rate wasn't up, and we paid for it. But we were able to get back up and finish.”

'There was a 10-minute thing when our team was kind of tired,” Steigleder said. 'But then we stepped it up when it was time for us.”

'We didn't change a whole lot,” West Coach Dave Rosenthal said. 'We built them up. We told them, you're in a situation where you know how to play. You can play, you just have to get over the hump. Settle yourselves into that rhythm and figure it out. They turned it on. They weren't going to be denied.”