By Derek Brightwell
The Louisville Cardinals women’s soccer team fell to 2-2-0 on the season with a 2-0 loss at the hands of bitter rival Kentucky who improved to 4-1-0.
The game went to the half scoreless, as both teams had chances early but could not capitalize. Kentucky came right of out the gate firing, with a shot that went just over the crossbar in the first minute of the game and getting another good look that went high over the goal in the tenth minute.
Louisville had two good looks at the goal in the first ten minutes as well. The first came in the form of an Erin Yenney shot missing wide right, the second coming off a corner kick that failed to reach the goal.
“I think we played a good first half and I thought for moments we played a good second half,” head coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes said of her team’s effort. “I think they kind of took over at the 60 minute mark. They were really dominant in the air and physically started to take over and instead of us fighting we back; we kind of relented a little bit. Had opportunities to score goals and created some good chances but I think at the end of the day their athleticism at the end of the game kind of took over.”
The tide did change midway through the second half, which saw a more aggressive Wildcat attack, lead to more chances at the goal. For most of the half, it seemed like the Cards would be able to keep the Cats out of the goal, due to their defense inside the box. But they were never able to turn their defense into offense, which Ferguson-Dayes contributes to the team’s youth.
“I think our team defending is exceptional,” she commented. “We turn teams over and we get ourselves in good attacking chances, but then just can’t finish the final piece of it. When I go back and look at the video, I imagine there are going to be a lot of younger players in those pivotal moments because we start and play so many younger kids. It’s a great experience for them but at the end of the day when we’re getting that many chances, we definitely have to convert.”
What looked like it would be Kentucky’s best chance at a goal came in the 70th minute when goalkeeper Paige Brown was drawn out of the net, but did not gain possession of the ball, leading to an open net look for the Wildcats. The shot was saved by sophomore Caroline Kimble.
In the 84th minute, however, Kentucky got another good look in the form of header from Michaela Dooley off an assist from Danielle Fitzgerald which found the back of the net, breaking the scoreless tie and would go on to be the game winner. Zoe Swift would add another goal when she got behind the defense and beat Brown in the 87th minute.
The more experienced Wildcats proved to be too much physically for a smaller, younger Cardinal team, who start five freshmen.
“Probably a combination of both,” Ferguson-Dayes remarked of the physical and mental battle in the game. “Because it wasn’t that they were building, they were just serving diagonally and physically getting numbers in the box. So it wasn’t great soccer that was breaking us down it was just physically they wore us down.
“And then when we did turn them over, in that moment of transition, keeping possession. So sometimes we were so deep and tried to attack from such a deep position where we’d have to keep possession for two or three passes to allow our build up, to allow our numbers to get forward. That was the hard part, because we were so deep defending them, so to allow the time and to get forward, we were a little too anxious to get into the final third and we just didn’t have the numbers to do it.”
Despite the loss, the youth of the team and the season allows Ferguson-Dayes to remain optimistic about the team and the year.
“It was a great learning lesson for us,” she said of the experience gained from the game. “I thought we played well, just not for 90 minutes. When they kind of took over, we never rode the wave enough to come back and take over. But still had a couple of chances at the end of the game too. But we’ll learn from it, that’s a positive. I think we’re a very good team, we’ll rebound and move forward.”
