Before its game last Friday, the women’s soccer team hadn’t been held scoreless since its Sept. 10 game at Loyola, Md. That streak came to a screeching halt over the weekend as the Colonials were held without a goal in both of their games over the weekend, a 1-0 loss on the road at Charlotte and a 3-0 loss at Saint Louis.
Friday’s loss to the 49ers was GW’s (9-5, 3-2 Atlantic 10) first A-10 loss of the season, snapping a seven-game winning streak. The game also marked the end of senior goalkeeper Bridget Mahon’s scoreless streak this season after nearly 239 minutes of shutout play.
Women’s soccer head coach Tanya Vogel placed most of the blame for the loss on her team’s inconsistency.
“I think on Friday, I felt like we gave Charlotte too much respect,” Vogel said. “We had a pretty clear game plan, and moments where we did well, and moments where we didn’t. But we were motivated coming out of Friday’s game.”
On Sunday, the Billikens took an early lead, scoring three unanswered goals in the first half that left GW reeling. Although the Colonials defense stopped Saint Louis from scoring again in the second half, the GW offense was unable to come back from the halftime deficit, despite four shots apiece from junior Sierra Smidinger and sophomore Adriana Moya.
“At first, there was a little bit of soul searching in terms of, ‘Okay, what just happened?'” Vogel said of Saint Louis’ early scoring barrage. “What this team came up with is that we know there’s gonna have to be a few improvements this week for us at practice.”
Heading into the weekend, Vogel knew her team was facing two fast opponents and adjusted her team’s practice schedules accordingly. After her team went 0-2 over the weekend, Vogel acknowledged the need for a new approach to GW’s workouts.
“We had talked about speed of play and had a pretty clear game plan. On Friday night we did well, but we looked tired today. There will be things the coaches will be evaluating that the team needs so our legs can stay underneath us,” Vogel said. “We need to do a better job of defining the game plan and train in it leading up to Friday.”
This coming weekend, GW finishes its road games for the regular season, traveling first to Fordham Friday and wrapping up its away games at La Salle Sunday. Vogel said she has a clear idea of what to expect.
“Fordham and La Salle are similar. They’ve got a little New York and a little Philly in terms of their mentality. They’re hard-working blue-collar teams,” she said. “Good news is, GW is a hard-working blue-collar team, too. The biggest thing we took out of this weekend is that we were a great team and we are a great team, we just need some improvements.”
