Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College goalie Rebekah Schroeder kicks the ball down the pitch during Monday evening’s Upper Midwest Athletic Conference game with Crown College at the MLC Soccer Pitch in New Ulm.

NEW ULM — While Martin Luther College freshman goalie Rebekah Schroeder had her hands full in net, freshman forward Katie Schoeneck gave her goalie and team a little breathing room in the second half of Monday evening’s Upper Midwest Athletic Conference game with Crown College.

A little breathing room was all it was, but it was enough for the Knights in the end as Schoeneck’s breakaway goal late in the second half lifted the Knights to a 1-0 win at the MLC Soccer Pitch.

The Polars were the aggressors in both halves, outshooting the Knights 28-11 overall in total shots and 17-6 in shots on goal.

But Schoeneck found a little bit of space in between the Crown defense, squeezing by a defender for a breakaway goal in the 78th minute.

“We got a great clear out from the defense and the team was supporting the run,” Schoeneck said. “I got some space and found the corner of the net.”

Schroeder’s eventful day in net saw her collect 17 saves for her second career college shutout. Her first shutout came at home on Sept. 9 against Buena Vista.

“It means so much to me,” Schroeder said of her second shutout at home. “I was so scared when I started playing soccer at a college level. And my first game, it wasn’t how we wanted it to be, but every time, I got encouragement, and I stepped up a little bit more. Now I’m very comfortable back there, especially on my home field.”

Schroeder was also recently named last week’s UMAC Women’s Soccer Defensive Player of the Week and made two key diving saves with less than 30 minutes to go to keep Monday’s game a stalemate.

But she was quick to commend her teammates for their help on defense during the game.

“Our defense always holds their own,” Schroeder said. “So they do a very good job of taking away the shot that the person wants to take, so their shots are maybe slightly less powerful than they want to or they make it a shot that I can handle by taking away an angle that I can’t cover in that moment. So we work very hard to communicate so that I’m in the correct position and they’re in the correct position and we block out all parts of the goal together.”

Crown took 11 corner kicks to MLC’s four and drew the lone yellow card in the game.

Schoeneck said another part of MLC’s success Monday came with improved passing.

“I think our passing was really good,” Schoeneck said. “We were finding some give-and-gos and some angles that have been good in past games and we keep building on that. I think we found some fastbreak options, too, but mainly I just love how much from our first game — our passing was so terrible — but we’ve come so much further than that and we can control our passing strings, and today I think we did a great job of using our defense to build up our possession.”

Schoeneck and Schroeder may be new to MLC, but they’re not new to each other, having played together at Luther Prep High School in Watertown, Wisconsin. Several Knights share a bond and high school time with each other, however, with eight of the team’s 21 players coming from Luther Prep.

That bond and teamwork was on full display Monday as the Knights held off the aggressive Polars.

After celebrating their first conference win of the season, the Knights (2-5-1, 1-2-1) travel to St. Paul to take on Northwestern at 7 p.m. Wednesday in UMAC action. Crown (1-6-1, 1-2-1) is at Bethany Lutheran College for a UMAC game at 7 p.m. Wednesday.