By Brad Hoff
The Louisville Cardinals’ women’s soccer team fell to Miami (Ohio) 2-1. This dropped U of L to 2-3-0 on the season.
The Cards held the Redhawks scoreless until they were able to score in the 39th minute after a scramble in the box, with a sliding goal by freshman Amy Malone. The cardinals were unable to get anything started and went into the locker room at half down 1-0.
“I do think we played better in the second half, first 15 minutes particularly.” Head Coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes remarked. “Mostly because of Lexi (Niedoba) and (Erin) Yenney, but then, unfortunately, gave up the second goal and then couldn’t get the equalizer. The second half was a better soccer game than the first half, but with that being said it still wasn’t good enough.”
Miami’s Jess Bronke received a yellow card in the 49th minute allowing junior Lexie Niedoba to score a goal in the 49th minute. Niedoba received a perfect cross from freshman Inger Katrine Bjerke and was able to head the ball into the upper left corner of the goal to tie the score up at 1-1.
The Redhawks unfortunately scored again in the 55th minute. Junior Haley Walter was able to kick one past U of L’s sophomore goalkeeper Paige Brown to take a 2-1 lead. The cards showed signs of life towards the end getting five corner kicks in nearly a ten-minute span. Despite the chances, none of the attempts were able to find the goal.
Coach Ferguson-Dayes believes they have a good team, but felt a lack of effort and energy is what lead to the Cardinals loss.
“You know today was disappointing because it wasn’t about talent. It was 100% about effort and energy and we just didn’t show up from the opening whistle of play. Regardless of what my plan is, if we don’t have players that want to provide effort and energy, anything I say is irrelevant. So we have to understand to respect the game a lot more than we did today. We’ve got a lot of maturity, a lot of growing up to do.”
The Cardinals are still trying to get their unexperienced players used to the college level. The coaches are working on teaching them the amount of effort and dedication expected day in and day out. Coach feels the upperclassmen were able to display these, but feel the underclassmen still have some work to do to turn their season around.
“We always can control our effort and our attitude and today we didn’t do that.”
The Cardinals travel to Morehead on Friday, Sept. 12 where they look to get their season back on track.
