Senior defender Paula Jurewicz said she feels a bit like a broken record, but it has been the same old story for Temple (9-6-1, 1-4-1) through six games of American Athletic Conference play.
“Like every other game, we need to keep putting away those chances and put teams away when we have the opportunity to,” Jurewicz said. “I have to say this every week. It’s getting crazy.”
Four days removed from outshooting East Carolina, 18-5, in a scoreless tie, the Owls once again failed to capitalize on a number of chances Thursday at Hurricane Stadium as Tulsa scored two goals in the final 10 minutes and sneaked away with a 2-1 home victory.
Temple and Tulsa each finished with 12 shots, but the Golden Hurricane outshot the Owls, 10-7, in the second half.
“I think they were getting a few chances late and they built momentum and we kind of turned off and we just need to not take any plays off and finish our chances,” Jurewicz said.
Sophomore Elana Falcone gave Temple its first, first-half lead since Sept. 20 when she scored her career-high sixth goal of the season in the 19th minute off an assist from fellow sophomore Gabriella McKeown.
“It was just a really, really good play and the ball got poked one out wide to Elana and she took a girl one-on-one and just shot it far post,” coach Seamus O’Connor said. “It was a nice build-up play, and Elana did a good job working her girl one-on-one and just made enough space for her to shoot.”
O’Connor praised his players for their ability to keep possession in a “breezy” environment, but said there were way too many missed scoring opportunities on the day as his team was unable to put the game out of reach.
In the 85th minute Tulsa’s Rachel Thun scored on a free kick from 19 yards out to tie the game, 1-1.
“It was a very soft free-kick call, but we expected on the road that the referees are going to give calls against you,” O’Connor said. “So, they got a really soft free kick at the edge of the box and the girls didn’t do a good job of following our instructions, and they took a quick free kick and scored off it while we were getting ready.”
Two minutes later, Thun struck again for her second goal of the match on a strike from 10 yards out to give Tulsa the lead.
“We should easily have been two-nil up before they scored,” O’Connor said. “We should have had the game put away and it’s just becoming the story of our season that we just cannot get it done on the attacking end of the field.”
Tom Reifsnyder can be reached at tom.reifsnyder@temple.edu or on Twitter @TomReifsnyder.
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