Photo by Jake McNeill
Southwest Minnesota State forward Dare Kroeten (7) chases down the ball during a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference womens soccer game against Minot State in Marshall on Sunday afternoon. The Beavers defeated the Mustangs 1-0.
MARSHALL — The Southwest Minnesota State University soccer team couldn’t capitalize on its strong offensive start against Minot State on Sunday afternoon in Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference play. Despite their attack performing as well as it has all season in the first half, the Mustangs were unable to capitalize and lost 1-0 to the Beavers.
“We always believed that this team is capable of doing good things. There was never one day that I doubted what we can do offensively, it’s just that this game, we put it together. At least for a half,” SMSU head coach Clay Glasgow said.
At halftime, SMSU held a 6-3 advantage in shots on goal. Selena Prolic led the team with two shots on goal while Dare Kroeten, Haley Mason, Brooke Wetterstrom and Jada Backes each added another. Mason finished the match with three total shots, including a pair of one-on-ones with the goalkeeper, but couldn’t convert.
“We had some chances, man, but we didn’t put them away,” Glasgow said. “Any team in our conference, it’s a tough conference, so any opportunity you get, you’ve got to score… It’s one-zero, we played a top team on Friday [fourth-place UMary, 2-1-1 NSIC]… and we tied 0-0. Every point is important. But I finally felt that this game, offensively, we looked good. We put it together.”
Despite the Mustangs’ first-half offensive dominance, they went into the locker room trailing 1-0. SMSU goalkeeper Rachel Hicks saved a shot attempt from Manuela Pacheco aimed at the bottom left corner of the goal, but Mia Lewis recovered and got the ball to Anna Miotto for the go-ahead header in the 37th minute. Miotto was responsible for eight of the Beavers’ 18 shot attempts.
“In soccer, so much is indefinite. You never know. You can have 90% of the possession and end up losing the game,” Glasgow said. “We’re going to go back and look at the tape, who didn’t challenge. She shouldn’t have an unchallenged header in the box. In all fairness, our goalkeeper made some good saves prior to that, we’ve just got to do a better job of clearing the ball.”
In Friday’s draw with UMary, Hicks recorded 10 saves to post her first clean sheet of the season. She made another eight saves against Minot State on Sunday but a lack of offensive production left the Mustangs with a loss.
While SMSU finished the first half with six shots on goal, they were held without a shot attempt in the second half. Minot, meanwhile, turned things up a notch with five shots on goal after the break.
“There’s a lot of momentum in the game and I felt that we lost some momentum,” Glasgow said of the shift. “You heard them, they’re a team that plays with a lot of emotion and I felt like we kind of got caught up in that emotion as well. We just weren’t playing how we should be playing.”
Glasgow added that he felt that there were moments when his team returned to its identity and played the way that it wanted to play, but wasn’t able to sustain it long enough to capitalize.
Siriana Gudino posted the clean sheet for Minot, saving each of the six shots she faced.
Sunday’s loss drops SMSU to 0-6-1 on the season overall and 0-2-1 in the NSIC, putting them in 14th place. The Mustangs will look to turn their luck around when they go on the road this week for a 3 p.m. matchup at Minnesota Crookston (1-5-1, 1-2 NSIC) on Friday and a 1 p.m. matchup at Bemidji State (4-3, 2-1 NSIC) on Sunday.
“This was a tough one, but we’ve got 11 more games. We’ve got to regroup, watch tape, practice, and come back and keep working. That’s all you can do,” Glasgow said. “It’s not the defense’s fault, the goalkeeper’s fault, mid[fielder’s] fault, we just didn’t score goals. We win as a team, we lose as a team. We’ve just got to keep working and keep going forward.”