The Owls tied South Florida 1-1 on Saturday afternoon, in a game that was played at Dunning-Cohen Champions Field at Penn Park due to inclement weather in the area.
Temple still has yet to win a game against a conference opponent, failing to increase its standing in the American Athletic Conference. Temple is now 7-3-3, with a conference record of 0-1-3.
Regardless, Temple showed fight in their performance having gone down a goal in the early stages of the game.
“I think it was a good game,” coach David MacWilliams said. “We had good chances and we came up big in our first couple chances. But, we gave up in the first 3 minutes and chased the game again.”
The Owls were only able to test the opposing goal keeper four times in the first half, but that was due to the fact that Temple had the ball going against the wind. Temple was outshot 4-9 by South Florida in the second half, but outshot the opposition 9-6 during the second half and overtime.
The Owls gave up another early goal to their opponents, this time two minutes into the game. The Owls had to chase the game again as they did against Southern Methodist and again responded with an equalizer from junior forward Chas Wilson in the 28th minute. Although the Owls had many other chances later on, they could not find the net to win the game.
The early goals conceded are a cause for concern as both freshmen were guilty of making the mistakes and allowing the opposition to capitalize on it for both goals.
“I don’t know,” MacWilliams said when asked if he knows the problem with the early goals. “Both freshman made the mistakes [on both occasions]. Maybe jitters had an effect, but as a staff we’ll take look at it and try to have a different warm up for the next game.”
The Owls now have played three overtime games in their last four games and MacWilliams believes the extra minutes and the quality of the play has definitely been a factor in the results.
“I think it’s the combination,” MacWilliams added. “It takes a toll when playing overtime games. But, we’re playing against the best teams in the country so it’s very competitive. We’ve just got to minimize our mistakes and we’ll be fine.”
Temple now has a week to prepare for their next conference opponent Memphis on Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Ambler Sports Complex.
Hoon Jin can be reached at hoon.jin@temple.edu.
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