They were at home. They dominated possession. Their leading scorer recorded a goal. Yet, those things did not add up for the Mississippi University for Women men’s soccer team.
Liam Kearns scored two goals Wednesday and Huntingdon College took advantage of critical mistakes to post a 3-1 victory over the Owls at Lowndes County Soccer Complex.
It was a frustrating evening for The W, which outshot Huntingdon 14-11, including 10-5 during the second half.
“Being conservative, we probably possessed 70 percent to their 30,” Owls coach Louis Alexander said. “We just made mistakes at pivotal places on the field, and they capitalized on them.”
It didn’t take long for the Hawks (4-4) to capitalize on a mistake, as an Owls giveaway deep in their own end of the field was turned into a 1-0 lead by Thad Lievens in the 10th minute of the game.
Kearns made it 2-0 16 minutes later, hesitating briefly before sliding a shot past Owls keeper David McCutchen.
But it was the third goal that proved crushing for the Owls. Another giveaway, this time near midfield, led to a near-breakaway that required a foul to prevent. Kearns lined up for a direct kick from 25 yards and sent a perfectly placed shot over McCutchen’s outstretched arms.
That goal during the 37th minute meant the visitors took a 3-0 lead into intermission, so when Vini Lopes scored less than 10 minutes into the second half the Hawks still had a cushion.
Alexander had competing takeaways from the game. The mistakes proved costly, but in between mistakes the Owls played pretty well.
“If there’s a silver lining — and I’m not really a silver lining guy —— we’re going to pull from this that we have one fix, and that’s to minimize those mistakes,” Alexander said. “We played, other than those mistakes, a beautiful game tonight. We had a game plan we installed earlier this week, and the guys followed it to a T. We created lots and lots and lots of chances; obviously, not a lot of them went our way, but more importantly our mistakes is what got us.”
Fix the mistakes, Alexander firmly believes, and the Owls (3-3) have something good going thi season.
“Every game we seem to get better,” he said. “The boys are working hard; they’re understanding what our identity is. Obviously it changes from opponent to opponent, but our core identity stays the same.”
And a big part of that identity is not relying on one position group to carry the team.
“Our back line is solid, our midfield is solid, the guys up top do the job well,” Alexander said. “We’re just very well-rounded.
“A big strength is their coachability. Depending on who we’re playing, we’ll put it in a different game plan, and the boys work on that game plan hard, and it shows.”
The Owls’ next chance to show off that hard work will come Sunday against Rhodes (4-3) in Columbus. The Owls and Lynx last played in 2018, when the Lynx rolled to an 11-0 win.
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