On September 24th, the Missouri Tigers were the second-best Tigers in Columbia, Missouri.
Auburn came to town to take on Mizzou in its third SEC matchup; the navy and orange came out early with a dominant offensive showing, handing the black and gold its third straight loss.
For most of the first half, Auburn found success attacking down the right flank, overloading Mia Devrouax, who made the transition to the back line this season. Its first goal followed a similar pattern, with Auburn’s Kelly Gordon
dribbling past Devrouax and serving up a cross that found the foot of Auburn Forward Kennedy Husbands, who pushed it past Kate Phillips to take a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute.
It didn’t take long for Kelly Gordon to find her second assist, doubling Auburn’s lead just five minutes later. Starting from a corner kick, Auburn dropped it back before lobbing the ball back to Gordon, who knocked it in the box for an aerial finish from Tahirah Turnage-Morales, giving the Tigers a comfortable two-goal lead.
“We give up a couple of what I would consider soft goals against us, and now we’re in the hole and having to try to dig out of it again,” Head Coach Stefanie Golan said. “It’s frustrating because I feel like we have enough to be able to get better results than we’re getting, but we shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Senior Keeper Kate Phillips found her way back into the starting lineup tonight after sitting out the first two SEC matchups of the year, and finished with a career-high 10 saves, nine of which came in the second half to stifle an aggressive Auburn attack.
Phillips proved to be a valuable asset for the Tigers in the first 10 minutes, when she halted a 1-on-1 opportunity when the Auburn attacker was through on goal.
“She’s got a lot of poise to her. You know, I think she had some decisiveness tonight,” Golan said. “When she came out, and she had to get there and the kid’s right there and stuff, it’s a physical confrontation. I think, you know, she showed some bravery in those moments.”
She kept it up in the second half, with a diving one-handed save that denied Auburn of a three-goal lead in the 55th minute. She found another quick reaction save, denying a corner opportunity in the 82nd minute, once again proving her utility between the posts.
Phillips’ remarkable second-half performance reached its climax in the 86th minute when an Auburn free kick turned into a quick double-save for the senior keeper.
“There were a couple that were kind of flurries here that didn’t end up in the in the back of the net,” Golan said. “So you know she’s fighting as much as she can to try to keep us in games.”
The Tigers saw minimal action in the first twenty minutes of the second half, but they settled in and began finding attacking opportunities with 25 minutes left on the clock.
Leading scorer Lana Adams — she only played just eight minutes in the first half — found a dangerous shot from the edge of the box, then senior attacker Brianna Buels found a shot on goal while going down the right side.
Mizzou finished with seven shots to Auburn’s 21. Of Mizzou’s seven, only three were on target.
“There were a couple of moments where we got there, we got the ball cut back and into places. We just have to have our timing of our runs and you know the the final execution needs to be a little bit better.” Golan said.
After the loss, the Tigers move to 3-6-1 and start SEC play with three straight losses. They will go back on the road to face a ranked South Carolina team, in hopes to find their first SEC win.
