By Pierce Feltner

The Louisville women’s soccer team overcame a two to zero deficit at halftime to take home the 3-2 victory, Sunday afternoon, against the Kent State Golden Flashes.

The Cardinals scored all three of their goals in the second half or overtime.

The Golden Flashes scored two early goals in the seventh and the 37 minutes of the first half. The Cardinals came out in the second half with an offensive mindset. They attacked right out of the gate in the second half with freshman Kaela Dickerman scoring in the 52 minute. Freshman Isabella Habuda added the equalizer in the 85 minute to force overtime. Freshman Allison Price capped it off by scoring at the 1:59 mark in the first overtime period.

“We knew we needed to get those two goals. We didn’t want to lose another game. We just worked our butts off trying to get everyone forward and our defense were really pushing up which helped us get forward and stay forward more.” Habuda said when asked about what changes were made at halftime.

Habuda played the whole second-half before adding her equalizer in the 86 minute.

“It was really hard. I was tired but I knew I just… it would feel so much better to win the game or tie the game and it helped,” Habuda said of the mental determination it took to win.

This was the last game before Louisville’s ACC conference schedule starts. This also ended a three-game losing streak for the Cards.

“It’s definitely going to boost us up because we know that we can do it even though we’ve gone through adversity, we know that we can win. Whether the competition is the ACC or not.” Price said.

Louisville’s head coach, Karen Ferguson-Dayes, was very happy with her team, especially the way the team came together in the second half. But now the Cards have their first conference game against Syracuse to shift their attention to.

“One game at a time. Obviously we had to focus on today’s game… but now we will refocus our effort on Syracuse,” Ferguson-Dayes said.

“When we worked in practice on the defending side of the ball we were great defensively in games. Then when we worked on the attacking side of the ball we were great offensively so the goal moving forward in the ACC is to combine and to continue to layer everything we’re working on in practice so we’re at our sharpest. We’re at our best. I think in the second half today was indicative of layering both the defending pieces with the attacking pieces and I think that’s why we won.”

The freshman-laden team, who boasts 12 freshmen on the roster, will be tested soon, facing the number five-ranked Florida State team in ten days. They will also have a stretch playing three ranked teams in four games, including the number two and three ranked teams in Virginia and Virginia Tech.

The Cardinals try to take the confidence of the win today into this tough schedule. They are trying to make a splash with their first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference and it looks as though they will have their chances.

 

Photo by Laurel Slaughter / The Louisville Cardinal