Gopher Women’s Soccer Takes First Big Ten Loss to Rival Badgers
The Minnesota Gopher Women’s soccer team lost their first Big Ten game of the season on Thursday night to Wisconsin 1-0 before a home crowd of 638.
The Badgers packed their defense making them tough to break down and only counter-attacked given the right opportunities. Wisconsin (4-3-3, 2-0-1) have only allowed 5 goals in 2010 and Badger goalkeeper Michele Dalton recorded her sixth shutout in as many games. It was also a night where the Gophers seemed a bit out of sync which also contributed to a rare home loss for Minnesota, who fall to 9-2-2 overall and 1-1-1 in Big Ten.
This year’s Gophers have taken advantage of converting scoring chances with the opportunities they’re given and in typical fashion Minnesota outshot their opponents 13-4. But the Badgers turned the tables on the Gophers Thursday night by scoring on one of only four Wisconsin shots. Of those 4 shots, only the game winner for the Badgers found its mark. Minnesota’s goalkeeper Cat Parkhill was never called on to make a save.
In the 57th minute Wisconsin’s Kodee William drove a hard cross square across the box from a deep wide right position. Sophomore midfielder Alev Kelter lost her defender and met the line-drive cross with her head powering the ball past Parkhill and bulging the net for Wisconsin.
The goal seemed to spur an urgency in the Gophers who had several long durations of domination in the Badger defending third. But it was a night where the Gopher women seemed to have a hard time finding the final pass by either poor execution or a lack of anticipation in their runs.
Minnesota’s best chance came late in the game with the pressure on the Badgers. The ball slipped out to Katie Bethke who again turned in an excellent performance for the Maroon and Gold. From 8-yards out Bethke blasted her shot into the underside of the crossbar. The ball caromed downward hitting just into the field of play from the goal line and bounced upfield.
“Obviously, we’re disappointed. If you look at the stat line, we outshot them, but I think what we were most disappointed in were our executions,” Minnesota head coach Mikki Denney Wright said. “Hats off to Wisconsin, they played a great game. For us, it’s just how are we going to respond? How are we going to grow from this point?”
IMS Notes:
The Badgers have two Minnesotans on their team. Catie Sessions, a freshman midfielder from Woodbury and junior midfielder Lauren Cochlin from Owatonna. Both saw plenty of minutes last night for Wisconsin. Sessions went the whole 90 and Cochlin contributed 42 minutes to her team.
The Gopher home loss last night ended the second longest unbeaten streak in school history at 11 games.
Minnesota now has a ten-day layoff before they host Purdue on October 10th with a rare 2 p.m. CST kickoff. The switch from the standard 1:00 pm time is to accommodate the Big Ten Network who will televise the game live.
Comments are closed.