A memorable run fell just short on Friday evening as the University of Evansville women’s soccer team fell to top seed Florida State by a 3-0 final in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
The 2015 Missouri Valley Conference Champions put up a great effort but fell just short as the defending national champion Seminoles outshot the Purple Aces by a 34-3 tally. For FSU, 14 of their shots were on goal. MVC Tournament Most Valuable Player Whitney Biggs made an impressive 10 saves in the match.
“I was very proud of our team, obviously our game plan was to keep the score as close as possible going into halftime and then depending on what that score was going to be would determine our tactics in the second half,†Aces head coach Krista McKendree said.
“Obviously with a 2-0 game we knew we had to score to win so we just thought, ‘Let’s just play the way we normally play. Let’s see what happens.’ I thought our girls fought very hard together, they executed they tried to execute our game plan as much as possible in the first half and they gave themselves a chance.”
Molly Lear had the shot on goal for UE while Emily Richardson and Allie Arguello also registered shots.
Biggs was strong in the first half, but Florida State finally got one past her at the 30:33 mark as Megan Connolly found the back of the net. Twelve minutes later, Elin Jensen found Berglind Thorvaldsdottir for their second goal of the game.
Thorvaldsdottir capped off the scoring in the 89th minutes on a header to make it the final of 3-0.
“Well communication was key tonight. We went into the game knowing we were going to get a lot of shots taken on us so we stuck to the game plan,†Biggs said. “We held it in tight, we knew that their throw-ins were going to be dropped right into our six so we marked up, we stayed tight, we communicated well. It was just a team effort tonight and I’m really proud of our girls.”
Picked to win the Valley in the preseason, the Purple Aces went 6-11-3, but in the end, accomplished their goal. Hosting the MVC Tournament on their home field last weekend, UE took down UNI by a 1-0 final to advance to the championship match. In Sunday’s game, Evansville fought Loyola through a scoreless 110 minutes of action before winning in penalty kicks.
