MSU Women’s Soccer falls behind in second half against Colorado Mines

The MSU Texas women’s soccer team played on home field this Friday, Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m. against Colorado School of Mines, falling to the Orediggers 0-2.

By half time, MSU and Colorado were tied 0-0. In total MSU had two corner kicks, five saves and fourteen attempted shots. Taylor Camp (No. 33), goalkeeper and sports and leisure senior, managed five saves throughout the game despite the two goals that slipped by.

Ryan Spence, head coach of women’s soccer, said that even if the game had ended 0-0 or 1-1 it would’ve still been a good score line.

“The energy has been good the past couple games just at the end of the day you have to put a chance away. If you’re going to be a good team, you have to be good at defending side pieces, and today we just weren’t doing good enough in that area and that’s why the score line of tonight can be a little misleading,” Spence said.

The next match for the women’s team will be this Sunday, Sept.12. On Saturday, the girls will hold their last practice before their next game.

“The day in between, is a day of recovery and use it as a mental check and just make sure the head is on right and fix a couple of things, maybe watch some film…there’s not much you can do or change in just one day between, so we just need to stay on the same course and be a little luckier on finishes and defend a little better and get set for training next week,” Spence said.

Hayden Zuniga (No.6) defender and sports and leisure senior, said despite the outcome, the team is continuously getting better every single day.

“With lots of ups and downs already so early in the season, we’re all finally starting to get together…we just need to find that final third and continue to develop our competitiveness. Personally, I think my individual performance could of been a lot better knowing the standard I hold myself to, but for being out for the past two weeks and missing a few games due to an injury, I was happy overall just to see minutes,” Zuniga said.

Zuniga believes in order to be successful come Sunday’s game, the team needs to continue to have the desire and drive to scrap out a win and that everyone needs a good night’s rest, proper meal and to stay mentally focused on the game.

Nicole Marsolek (No.2), defender and general business junior, said that the team just needs to work and focus on set pieces.

“We’ve definitely gotten better with our energy and speed of play; over the years we’ve struggled with our first twenty minutes of play and we have really improved on that. Our movement and distribution of the ball was our strength tonight, but our weakness was not being strong in the air; the set pieces that Colorado had and scored off of, they had noticed prior and took advantage of and that is how they got their goals,” Marsolek said.

Along with her teammate Nicole Marsolek, Alyssa Salinas (No.5), biology junior, agreed on the need to work on set pieces, being more accurate on goal and finishing shooting attempts.

“As a team we are doing better at keeping the ball and just having possession of it. I think everyone played a great role tonight. There are just a few things that we need to tweak and work on like set pieces, being more accurate on goal and finish our shooting attempts, but overall I think we did better and we are only going to pick it up from here,” Salinas said.

The next match for the women’s team will be this noon on Sunday, Sept. 12 at Stang park, against Regis Colorado. On Saturday, the girls will hold their last practice before their next game.

“The day in between, is a day of recovery and use it as a mental check and just make sure the head is on right and fix a couple of things, maybe watch some film…there’s not much you can do or change in just one day between, so we just need to stay on the same course and be a little luckier on finishes and defend a little better and get set for training next week,” Spence said.

Salinas said that in between the game from tonight and tomorrow, the team is going to get together, prepare mentally and work on defending those set pieces.