After a winless 2013 season, the BG women’s soccer team was eager to start off its 2014 campaign with a positive result against the Morehead State Eagles on a sunny Friday evening at Cochrane Stadium.
The Eagles, who won the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Championship in 2013, proved to be a tough opponent and took home a late 2-1 victory over a newly built Falcon team.
“You can’t fall asleep at this level in a 90 minute game and Morehead is a team that knows how to win,” BG head coach Lindsay Basalyga said.
BG dropped to 0-1-0 in regular season play while Morehead State started out 1-0-0.
BG player Madison Schupbach, one of five starting freshmen for the Falcons, scored the leading goal with a shot from outside the box after 15 minutes of play.
Schupbach said she was excited to score her first career goal, but it was important to move on from that and play the rest of the game successfully.
Fourteen minutes after the Falcons’ lead, Morehead State forward Angela Black scored the game-tying goal making it 1-1.
Head coach Basalyga said she was disappointed with the first half effort and had to make some tactical changes at half time.
“I think the second half looked a lot better for us in the attack,” Basalyga said. “[It was] definitely a lot more exciting in the final third of the field and at the end of the day we are just trying to work on our process to turn winning into a habit.”
In the 82nd minute Eagles senior Holly Tilley netted in an indefensible shot from the top right corner of the box making it 2-1 for Morehead State.
BG senior Ashley Garr said although the team started with a loss, the team has greatly improved in the attack compared to last year and getting more goals will get the team to the next level.
“Coach [Basalyga] always says leave your fingerprint on the program and I want people to look back and be like we were the class that started the rebuilding process, we were the class that started the change in BG women’s soccer,” Garr said.
In their second game this weekend, BG women’s soccer played the nationally ranked University of Michigan women’s soccer team at Ann Arbor on Sunday.
The game ended in a 2-0 victory the Wolverines. Basalyga said she was proud of the effort her team showed against what she called a dangerously attacking Michigan team.
“We definitely competed against the number seven team in the nation,” she said.
BG had a total of 3 shots and a single corner in the game whereas the Wolverines shot 27 times and had 20 corners.
Basalyga said BG goalkeeper Lauren Cadel made several big saves to keep the Falcons in the game and the Falcons were very disciplined defensively.
“After seeing 20 corners and not giving up a goal, I think it’s safe to say we were pretty sharp on defensive corners,” she said.
The Falcons are now 0-2-0 in regular season play while Michigan improves to 2-0-0.
For their next game, the Falcons will travel to Indiana to take on the University of Evansville on Friday, Aug. 29.
