With every goal carrying increased importance, every loss is a potential knife to the heart of a team’s chances to make the playoffs. The Hamline women’s soccer team (7-4-1, 2-3-1 MIAC) is riding on such an edge right now as they sit just outside the MIAC playoff picture with five games to go.

Their position is improved after a 1-0 victory over Saint Mary’s (2-8-1, 0-6 MIAC) last Saturday, but not by much. The Pipers were in control of large portions of the game against Saint Mary’s. Outshooting the Cardinals 9-2 in the first half and 16-10 in the game, the Pipers kept the Cardinals goalkeeper active by putting 11 of their shots on net.

Only one shot was needed to win the game, and senior midfielder Malya Hirshkowitz made hers count, sneaking a shot from 40 yards out just under the crossbar 36:55 into the first half for her fifth goal of the season.

“Malya has done a little bit of everything for us,” said head coach Ted Zingman. “She’s one of our leading scorers, she plays defense, she does it all.”

The win was senior goalkeeper Amy Ramras’ seventh of the year, 18th in her career and her 15th shutout. That pushes her into a tie for second-most wins in a season by a Hamline goalie, and her career wins and shutouts are both tops in Hamline history.

“Amy has played very well and has been consistent throughout the year,” Zingman said.

The team has had its ups and downs so far this year. Winners of five straight to open its season, the team then lost or tied each of its next five games before getting back to its winning ways with 3-2 and 1-0 victories over St. Scholastica and Saint Mary’s, respectively.

“We got off to a strong start by winning a lot of non-conference games,” Hirshkowitz said. “Going into conference means the competition gets tougher so we’ve had to deal with some better competition.”

Going into the Homecoming weekend game against Saint Mary’s, the Pipers were looking to build off their win against St. Scholastica.

“We had a pretty good week and we were looking to build off of that,” Hirshkowitz said. “We’re looking to keep our momentum up and keep from changing anything up.”

The Pipers have stayed true to the system run by Zingman and with their recent victories, the team is starting to see the wins they had been missing out on.

“The way we approach each game is that we want to play our game,” Zingman said. “We’ll make some minor changes but we’ve developed what we consider to be Hamline soccer and that’s how we want to play.”

There’s a lot of faith in the depth of the team throughout the rest of this year and heading into next season.

“We have a great team this year and the first-years have come in and played great,” said junior forward Anna Futterer.

Zingman is also impressed with the depth of his team despite the lack of a true star player.

“We have a great mix of talented upperclassmen and exciting young players joining the program,” Zingman said. “We have a nice balance of talent and we’re not too top-heavy and we’re not too reliant on our younger players.”

The Pipers are tied with Carleton for seventh place in the MIAC with seven points, two points behind St. Olaf for the sixth and final playoff spot.

“We have a good team and we’re prepared to take on some good teams,” Futterer said.

Take on good teams they will, as the Pipers will face four conference opponents in their final five games, and three of those four are in the top four of the MIAC standings. With one of their better teams since they posted a 12-5-1 record in 2012, the Pipers have been hanging tough against some of the best teams in the MIAC.

“I thought we played very well against St. Thomas even though we didn’t get the result we wanted,” Zingman said on the Pipers’ 0-1 loss to St. Thomas on Oct. 1. “As far as we played I thought that was one of our best games of the season.”

With the result of yesterday’s game against Carleton unknown at the time of printing, the Pipers could be facing Augsburg this Saturday with their season on the line. The Pipers welcome Augsburg to Paterson Field at 1:00 p.m. this Saturday, Oct. 15.