STARKVILLE — Watching Mississippi State heading out onto the practice field at MSU Soccer Field on Wednesday afternoon, you couldn’t tell that the Bulldogs had just come off of two-straight losses in Southeastern Conference play.
A win to open up conference play against Auburn gave way to two close but preventable losses over the last week: one against Texas A&M and one against LSU.
In both of those games, it seemed like the Bulldogs made smart adjustments and everything went right except the final score. Mississippi State wants to make sure that pattern doesn’t keep repeating.
“It’s been a really tough week because we played really good soccer,” Mississippi State head coach James Armstrong said. “I think we played our two best games of the season so far. … We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot at difficult times.”
First, against the Aggies, a late foul inside the box led to a penalty conversion for Texas A&M and 1-0 win for the visitors.
Then, in the home opener for the Tigers in Baton Rouge, Mississippi State (6-3-2) took a 1-0 lead only to see it evaporate in an eventual 2-1 loss.
In both games, preventable mistakes, whether it be bad fouls defensively or the inability to convert chances offensively, cost the Bulldogs results that they needed.
“We just have to be a little bit smarter in terms of not giving up silly things, but we’ve got to start taking our chances when they come,” Armstrong said.
The road doesn’t get any easier this week, facing a Tennessee team that’s easily the best Mississippi State has played this season. The Volunteers are 6-2-2 overall, coming off a big result against No. 7 South Carolina in Columbia, a 1-1 draw in a rowdy atmosphere.
The relentless grind of the SEC soccer schedule means there’s no time for looking backward.
“I think we’re a much better team than we were last year, but the other teams that we’ve played so far are better versions of what they were last year,” Armstrong said. “I think the league as a whole has really improved, but the girls have done a great job in matching our opponents in those facets.”
The newcomers on the roster are slowly but surely settling into the pace of play and physical nature of SEC play, and Armstrong and the coaching staff hope that acclimation leads to more consistent results.
“The girls are fighting for one another,” Armstrong said. “They just have to start getting results. … We want the girls to get something from the effort they’ve been putting into it.”
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