Mankato West goalkeeper Emily Wick walked off the soccer field on Saturday with a huge smile on her face.

Not only had she and her teammates blanked crosstown rival Mankato East 2-0 at Thomas O. Anderson fields, but she had recorded her sixth shutout of the season. Officially, Wick made nine saves during the match. In fact, few of her stops were difficult as West’s aggressive play up top and smothering defense kept East from mounting many serious scoring threats.

“Our defense has just been so solid this year,” West coach Crissy Makela said afterward. “We have the speed to stay with opposing attackers, we’re getting good marks and we’re able to rotate a lot of people to stay fresh. We’ve outscored our opponents 16-1 this year, and that’s pretty good.”

Wick’s counterpart Sarah Brozik was more heavily tested during Saturday’s game but she managed to keep the Scarlets off the board until the final minute of the first half.

That’s when West’s Lizzy Makela served up a ball in front to Breeta Oxnard who was tied up with a defender. The ball glanced off the defender and into the net, giving Oxnard the goal.

“I just happened to be the closest one,” Oxnard said. “Lizzy really did all the work.”

The 1-0 lead stood up until about seven minutes remained in the game. At that point, Brozik and West’s April Yun raced toward a loose ball in front of the Cougars’ net. They both got there at the same time and the ball popped up right to Oxnard, who headed in a soft six-foot shot for the final 2-0 score.

“That one was set up by April,” Oxnard said. “I’m excited that I scored some goals today but really it was my teammates that did it.”

Brozik ended up with six saves and felt that, overall, the more inexperienced East squad held its own.

“We knew it was going to be a tight game and it was,” she said. “I thought we played pretty well defensively.

“We knew West was going to come in here fired up because of last year’s section game (when we beat them in a shootout). We wanted to keep that little win streak going, but they got the better of us today.”

At 7 p.m. Monday, West (6-1, 1-1 in Big Nine) plays a conference game at Rochester Century and East (4-2-1) plays a league game at Faribault.