Women's soccer drops two straight on road

The News Record

Published: Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The University of Cincinnati women’s soccer team dropped two games over the weekend to Villanova University and Georgetown University.

The Bearcats scored the first goal in both matches, but couldn’t hang on to the lead in either game.

Villanova came back to beat Cincinnati 3-1 Friday, Oct. 9, and Georgetown battled back to win 3-2 Sunday, Oct. 11.

“When you look at the goals that we gave up, they were young mistakes,” said UC head coach Michelle Salmon. “Set piece goals are something we need to clean up and these mistakes were caused from checking out in key moments.”

Against Villanova, Kendall Loggins scored an early goal for the Bearcats in the second minute of play, her fifth of the season. Loggins scored on a header off a throw-in from Emily Hebbeler.

Set pieces doomed the Bearcats later in the half and the Wildcats equalizing goal came off a corner kick in the 20th minute.

Villanova went on to take a one-goal in the 33rd minute of the first half when Katie Ryan scored on a penalty kick.

In the second half, the Bearcats added insult to injury when they scored an own goal in the 52nd minute.

In the end, the early lead was not enough to secure three points for a win.

“We started two sophomores and two freshmen in the back, and it was the first time they had played together. All the injuries to our defense have forced us to adapt. Villanova also has a very good team and they applied a lot of pressure,” Salmon said.

“We will bounce back were a resilient team and were determined to prove ourselves.”

In Sunday’s game against Georgetown, the Bearcats once again had a promising start with Katie Johnson scoring the opening goal in the 34th minute off a header assisted by Loggins.

Six minutes later, the Hoyas tied the game when Samantha Baker headed a ball in the back of the net off of another corner kick.

Georgetown iced the game in the second half with goals in the 53rd and 70th minute. Melissa Bigg made things interesting in the final 15 minutes of the game when she scored a goal in the 74th minute.

UC had 11 shots in the game, which was the most since Sept. 20, against Akron. Georgetown sout shot the Bearcats by four.

“I am proud of my team this weekend for the way they battled and dealt with adversity as they continue to grow as a team,” Salmon said.

UC only had 13 healthy players for both games.

“We have four huge games coming up at home to close out the season and we control our fate,” Salmon said. “The goal coming into the season and still is to make the Big East Tournament.”

The Bearcats next match is Friday, Oct. 16, against Marquette at 7 p.m.