The Eckerd Tritons women's soccer team (1-7-1, 0-4 SSC) took on Nova Southeastern University (6-4, 3-2 SSC) Wednesday night at the Turley Athletic Complex but could not come away with a win, falling 2-0.
In response to the result from the match, Coach Joe McCauley stated that the team wasn't "fully switched on and ready to go, and I think that has created some problems for us. It's a little disappointing; we kind of gave that one away and that's a game I think we could win."
NSU's Alexis Hernandez scored the first goal of the game in the 35th minute of play. While there were several opportunities for Eckerd to take advantage of some gaps in NSU's defense, they just could not find the back of the net.
"We controlled the ball a lot, once we settled and started passing the ball around we did good, but we still struggled to find final passes that could get us scoring opportunities; we need to get players moving forward in a full sprint and they are kind of waiting for the ball to be played," McCauley said.
After halftime, the momentum for Eckerd seemed to pick up in the beginning of the second half as they seemed to have more control of the ball. Unfortunately, in the 67th minute, Aubrey Fondy was able to break away from the Eckerd defense and bypass goalkeeper
Marisa Berger, who came out to challenge the run, successfully obtaining NSU's second goal for the night and sealing Eckerd's fate.
After that, Eckerd seemed to lose a bit of the wind in their sails.
"That's part of the game, and that's something that we address constantly, being able to push those things aside and continue to play. Easier said than done."
Berger made five saves overall while Eckerd obtained two shots on goal, one by freshman
Maddy Anderson and the other by junior
Nicole Davis.
The Tritons will continue their conference schedule on Saturday, October 10 in Miami Shores, Fla. versus Barry University (3-8, 0-2 SSC) before returning home on Wednesday, October 14 to take on longtime rival University of Tampa.
