BGSU women’s soccer (1-1-0) fell to Illinois (2-0-0) 1-0 on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Cochrane Stadium.
A strike from Sydney Stephens in the early second half proved to be the difference in a tight contest to give BG their first loss of the season.
Despite the loss and it being early in the season, Bowling Green and head coach Chris Fox were pleased with the performance against the Big Ten school.
“I thought the performance was excellent. I think especially in the first half, we would execute our game plan in possession, which caused them a lot of problems, had a lot of big chances, but those are the chances you need to put away,” said Fox. “If you want to win these games, you’ve got to put the chances away. But now, overall, I mean, I’m feeling disappointed with the result. I don’t think we deserve the loss.”
Bowling Green sophomore goal-keeper Payton O’Malley made five saves on the afternoon. Including a big one-on-one save against Illinois’ Ashlyn Adams in the first half to keep it 0-0.
“I was really excited for Payton today because she makes saves like that in practice a lot. And I think she’s a very good shot stopper, and we haven’t seen many of those saves,” said Fox. “That’s a match in itself. Like that could have, should have, maybe probably would have been a goal.”
Substitutes also kept the pace up for the Falcons, including junior forward Lizzie Bultynck, who played 28 minutes off the bench and recorded three shots, including two on goal.
“All the way from the start to the bench, I feel like we brought the energy, and that’s exactly what we talked about before the game,” said Bultynck. “Even if we weren’t having a high moment, like to bring that energy just to keep our team motivated, whether you were on the bench or the field, and I feel we did a really good job of that.”
Bultnyck had one of the best chances of the day for the Orange and Brown. In the first half, she received a pass from sophomore Alexis Tsaprailis that put her through on goal, striking the ball with her left foot, but Illinois goalkeeper Izzy Lee was able to make the stop.
“Coming off the bench, I’m looking to make an impact as fast as I can, and cause them the biggest problem that I can,” said Bultynck. “Our instruction was to run as hard as we could, and that’s exactly what I tried to do, just to give them a challenge and give some other players a little bit of a break.”
Bowling Green will start the year with one win and one loss and will finish out their three-game home stand to start the 2025 season against Cleveland State on Thursday, Aug. 21, at 4:00 p.m.
