Temple University women’s soccer knew that keeping up with ninth-ranked Rutgers University would be a tall order, but when junior midfielder Sam Kroeger scored just nine minutes into the match, the Scarlet Knights proved to be too much to handle for the Owls.
Temple (0-2-2, 0-0 American Athletic Conference) lost to the nationally ranked Scarlet Knights (5-0, 0-0 Big Ten Conference) 7-0 on Thursday night in Piscataway, New Jersey, to remain winless on the season.
“Rutgers is a high-quality team,” said head coach Nick Bochette. “Any time a loss like this happens, it falls on me first and foremost, so we need to take a good long look at our tactics and clearly I got it wrong tonight.”
Following Kroeger’s opening goal, the Owls managed to stay within reach of the Scarlet Knights for the majority of the first half. Senior forward Emily Kavanaugh had a breakaway opportunity midway through the half, but Rutgers’ defense back line quickly broke up the scoring chance.
The Scarlet Knights added to their lead at the 42-minute mark when sophomore defender Emily Mason scored from inside the penalty box on a ball that snuck by Owls’ sophomore goalkeeper Kyla Burns, making it a 2-0 game at halftime.
Coming out of halftime, Rutgers continued to push the ball into the attacking third. Just three minutes into the second half, sophomore midfielder Kylie Daigle found the back of the net on a corner kick that got by Burns, extending the Scarlet Knights lead to three.
Rutgers scored four more goals from junior midfielder Becci Fluchel, freshman midfielders Allie Post and Mallory McGuire and senior midfielder and former Owl Hailey Gutowski, securing a 7-0 advantage.
The Owls entered the contest in a two forward, four midfielder formation for the first time this season. In previous games, the Owls have used three forwards, but tried a new-look to jumpstart an offense that has scored just one goal in four games.
“We knew that we were going to be doing a healthy amount of defending tonight,” Bochette said. “We thought we would try to strengthen the midfield position tonight to give us a chance to attack which didn’t materialize.”
Despite struggling to find their footing this season, Bochette believes that it is only a matter of time before his team starts to hit their stride, he said.
“We think that we have the personalities on this team to score goals,” Bochette said. “Tonight was a good example of us not giving ourselves even a chance to allow those personalities to be dangerous in front of goal.”
The Owls will continue their pursuit of their first win when they travel to Lawrenceville, New Jersey, to take on Rider University (3-1, 0-0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) on Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. at Ben Cohen Field.
Be the first to comment