Mizzou Soccer’s non-conference slate wrapped up on Sunday, Sept. 7 with a match against the Kansas City Roos. The match’s end score did not represent the true commanding nature that the Tigers had in this contest. Mizzou now stands at 3-3-1 heading into conference play with the 1-0 victory.
Coming off a shutout loss to Illinois, the Tigers emerged from kickoff with an urgency in this match. Junior defender Mia Yang found the back of the net in the third minute of play, assisted by sophomore forward
Emily Derucki. This was Yang’s second goal of the season and Derucki’s team-leading fourth assist of the season.
“It was a great service by Emily,” Yang said post-match. “She always has such quality services, so I was glad I could get that one in the back of the net, especially so early on.”
With the way Mizzou started the match, it felt like they would bury Kansas City early, but the score going into halftime was still 1-0. The Tigers had two shots on goal out of seven total attempts, showing a less accurate on-goal percentage compared to their match against the Fighting Illini, where it was 72.7%.
There was nearly a scare for Mizzou in the 53rd minute when junior forward Ashley Koch got a one-on-one opportunity on junior goalkeeper Kate Phillips. Luckily, the Tigers’ last line of defense stayed composed and went to the ground to make her second save of the night.
The Tigers had five more shots in the second half than in the first, but could not find a goal to push the match to a safe lead. The defense held strong, though, holding the Roos to three shots on the night to battle any equalizing goal opportunities.
Odds and Ends
The clear standout for the Tigers in the opening half of play was Yang. She recorded a career-high three shots and two shots on goal through the initial 45. Before this match, Yang had only two shots on goal for her college career.
Mizzou notched a season-high total of seven corner kicks in the first half alone. They finished the match with a dozen corner opportunities.
“We have to be better with the looks that we’re getting,” Golan said. “We had 12 corners, scored one of them, but had some other really good looks off of that.”
Head coach Stefanie Golan elected to make one change to the starting lineup from the previous match. Sophomore forward Mia Devrouax was in, and junior forward Bri Buels was out. The veteran option had started every match of the season previously, but still saw 58 minutes in this affair.
This win for the Tigers will jump-start their SEC campaign. The conference schedule will begin with two home matches, the first coming against the 2-4-1 Texas Longhorns on Friday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m.
