Temple women’s soccer loses season opener

Temple University women’s soccer lost their 2019 season opener, 3-0, to Wake Forest University on Thursday night in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 

Coach Seamus O’Connor called the game the “hardest season opener” he’s experienced at Temple. 

Wake Forest, which is ranked 23 in the United Soccer Coaches poll, peppered 13 shots on net, compared to only one for Temple, which came from junior midfielder Julia Dolan in the 34th minute. 

Senior goalkeeper Morgan Basileo was forced to make 10 saves, while Wake Forest goalkeepers, sophomore Mac Carmichael and graduate student Meghan Kennedy, combined for only one save.

“This game probably came a little too soon for us but we wanted to play it to figure out what we weren’t good at,” O’Connor said. “I wanted to make sure early on we got a good test just to show us where our fitness needed to be.”

Wake Forest came out fast right away, forcing Basileo to make her first save of the season in just the seventh minute. 

Five minutes later, Wake Forest broke through for the lead. 

Wake Forest senior defender Lily Schneider played a through ball to redshirt junior Estelle Laurier down the right sideline. Laurier took one touch and crossed it into the box and to redshirt sophomore Hulda Arnarssdottir, who scored. 

By the 26th minute, Wake Forest held an 8-0 advantage in shots. 

In the 41st minute of play, Wake Forest broke through twice in 35 seconds to extend its lead. 

Basileo kept Temple in the game in the 47th minute when she came off of her line to stop a one-on-one attempt. 

Still, Temple wasn’t able to get a single shot on net in the second half. 

“It’s tremendous that we went down by three at halftime and were able to come out the second half and not quit,” O’Connor said. “We play[ed] a really strong game in the second half.”

Although it wasn’t the result that his team was looking for, O’Connor took away many positives from the game. 

“We did some really good stuff,” O’Connor said. “Wake Forest had to play their best game to play to beat us, and I thought that was a great compliment to our ladies. They usually like to play through the middle and we just didn’t let them do that. Even though they had a ton of movement in there, we forced them to come down the outside, which is where we have some of our strongest players. 

“We were restricting them and pushing them to the outside of the fields, which limited their game plan,” he added.

Temple will head to Baltimore on Aug. 29  to play University of Maryland, Baltimore County at 7:00 p.m.

“The final third just didn’t click for us tonight just,” O’Connor said. “That’s definitely an area that we know we have to focus on going into our next series of games.”