STARKVILLE — Mississippi State women’s soccer is flying into the new season on the back of two big wins, downing UL Monroe 5-0 at home on Friday night.
The Bulldogs’ returning experience was on full display with goals from three different starters from a year ago. However, the young talent arriving over the spring and summer had plenty of time on the field as well, with two freshmen scoring to make their mark early on and transfer Chelsea Wagner creating several good scoring opportunities from the wing. Returning starters Maggie Wadsworth, Ilana Izquierdo, Ally Perry, and freshmen Ines Simas and Kara Harris all got on the scoresheet against UL Monroe.
“I feel really good,” head coach James Armstrong said after the win. “We’re just working on improving day in and day out, that’s the most important thing. Certain things that we work with the girls on, can they show it in games against opponents, and today everything we worked on throughout the week is definitely improved from last time around. Everybody got to play again today, everybody got to play against Kennesaw State, so a great opportunity that shows the depth in our squad.”
What stood out was the team’s ability to keep shape and continue playing their game even with the new arrivals substituting in for the veterans. Armstrong scheduled a trip to London to face professional sides in the spring, and that work appears to have paid off with his players and their understanding of the team tactics.
“The beauty of it was we also got six of our incoming freshmen in January, so we had a really good squad to work with,” Armstrong said of the offseason training. “We brought in some transfers as well, four transfer players, so we had a large squad with a lot of depth in the spring, which allowed us to tinker with some things, particularly with going to England and playing some additional games there.”
The Bulldogs set up in a three-back system with four midfielders patrolling the center of the pitch. Captain Macey Hodge and Izquierdo constantly bossed the visitors as the team executed a tight press in the middle and won the ball in dangerous areas.
Both Perry and Harris scored from situations where the defense had scrambled out and failed to clear an initial chance, leading to heads-up plays to catch them out with long-range shots.
Even with those two strikes, the goal of the day belonged to the freshman Simas from Portugal. She arrived in time to hit a first-time strike from the box, rifling it past the goalkeeper and making her mark on her first appearance in front of the Bulldog faithful.
“She is very much like Ilana,” Armstrong said of Simas. “She settled in straight away, she’s a professional in everything that she does. She’s lived away from home before so settling in has been a bit easier than she may have thought, but that was a great hit today and you could just tell that she was really enjoying the moment.”
MSU’s first match of the regular season will be at home against Baylor at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 16.
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