St. Paul, MN - The Martin Luther College women's soccer team dropped its conference game to Northwestern 4-1 on Wednesday evening. 

MLC started things off on a positive note when Katie Schoeneck found the upper left corner of the back of the net to put the Knights on the board first at the eight minute mark.

The Eagles wasted no time with a rebuttal of their own and tied the game up 1-1 with just a minute gone by following the Schoeneck goal.

The score would remain tied heading into halftime as both teams buckled down defensively and blocked many shot attempts. Each team had great opportunities to break the tie with breakaways on consecutive possessions, but neither team was able to convert on them.

The last chance for MLC to regain the lead came in the 57th minute when Schoeneck missed a shot to the right of the net. Following the missed shot, the Eagles put an end to their empty trips down the field and made it 2-1 on a header from Hailey Mersberger. The goal came after Rebekah Schroeder mishandled a corner kick, leaving an open gap for the Eagles forward.

Mersberger would then ice the game away with two more goals off of corner kicks in the 65th and 70th minute of action, as Northwestern cruised to the 4-1 victory.

The Knights hung tough against the Eagles for the majority of the game, but had difficulty preventing the corner kick goals of Northwestern and in particular the hat trick performance from Mersberger.

Despite giving up four goals, Schroeder once again displayed a solid effort and recorded 17 saves for the third consecutive game at the goalkeeper position. Meanwhile, the lone goal from Schoeneck gave the freshman her sixth of the season, rising up the leader board for third in the conference.

MLC (2-6-1) goes on the road for their next game against UW-Superior at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 30.