STARKVILLE — The No. 12 Tennessee women’s soccer team gave Mississippi State the help it needed minutes after the Bulldogs took the pitch to start the second half Thursday night.
MSU entered the night needing a victory against LSU and help elsewhere in the league to make the Southeastern Conference tournament. Tennessee obliged by beating Missouri in overtime, so all the Bulldogs had to do was topple the Tigers.
MSU had plenty of opportunities to make history.
The Bulldogs racked up 27 shots, including eight on goal, and limited LSU had eight shots. But MSU’s offensive pressure failed to produce the results the team needed in a 2-1 loss on a rainy night at the MSU Soccer Field.
“We create our own problems. They scored on us exactly how we showed them they score goals,” MSU coach Tom Anagnost said. “We don’t deserve to win the game because we should’ve scored more than a handful of goals in this game; we didn’t make the plays in the box and they did. It’s a very unforgiving game.”
MSU (9-6-2, 2-6-2 SEC) needed only four shots to open the scoring in the eighth minute, but it hit the crossbar twice after that as part of a parade of scoring chances that were agonizingly close.
As a result, MSU failed to qualify for the 10-team SEC tournament, which starts Sunday in Orange Beach, Alabama. Despite the loss, Missouri (6-10-2, 3-6-1) earned the No. 10 seed and will play No. 7 seed LSU in the first round of the SEC tournament. Missouri and MSU, which had the toughest SEC schedule, didn’t play in the regular season. MSU, which hasn’t advanced to the SEC tournament since 2004 and has never appeared in the event at Orange Beach, Alabama, also didn’t play Georgia and Kentucky, the bottom two teams in the league.
Still, MSU has an opportunity to make history and earn its first bid to the NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs entered the evening with a No. 15 Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). The NCAA tournament selection committee uses RPI as a factor when it evaluates the strength of teams for its at-large bids.
“I commend my players for working their tails off, being the best team out there, outplaying them between the 18-yard lines the entire game, creating more chances,” Anagnost said. How many crossbars did we hit?”
Unfortunately, MSU hit the crossbar once in each half. Those weren’t the only frustrating moments. In the first five minutes, forward Brooke McKee played a nice cross on the ground to no avail. A second cross on the ground came 14 minutes later and led to a corner kick that resulted in three shots from three different players that were blocked or saved.
In the first 20 minutes of the second half, MSU had a cross from midfielder Andrea Tyrrell go unfinished, a dangerous free kick from defender Courtney Robicheaux bounce off the crossbar, and a slick dribble by forward MaKayla Waldner that she used to move deep into the box go for naught after her shot went past the far post.
MSU had five shots in the final 10 minutes. Robicheaux, a senior defender who moved to forward, had a career-high eight shots on the night.
“I think we were fully motivated to beat this team,” Robicheaux said. “We were pressing them, running after every ball, trying to get a chance and do anything we could to put this team away or tie it back up.”
Robicheaux also believed the wet pitch led to a few missed clearances and the occasional odd skip that created some opportunities.
MSU took a 1-0 lead on Zakirah McGillivary’s eighth goal. The freshman split two defenders above the penalty box and came out with the ball. After taking one or two steps, she launched a shot to the lower left corner.
“We wanted to press this team because we knew we had a lot on the line. We knew we had to win this game,” McGillivary said. “I knew we were pressing. I got the ball from her, I went up and shot it, and all I could think about was, ‘I’m doing this for my team.’ I was so happy I could do it.”
MSU will have plenty of time to contemplate its missed opportunities and to work on finishing its chances. The field for the NCAA tournament will be announced Nov. 5.
“We’re going to prepare for (the NCAA tournament) and knock it out of the park,” she said.
Anagnost believes MSU has a “very strong” case to make the NCAA tournament thanks in part to a seven-game winning streak to start the season.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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