The start of SEC play has been just short of horrible for Vanderbilt’s soccer team. Head Coach Darren Ambrose cannot be happy with the results so far as the team has drawn LSU, lost at Arkansas (when holding
a lead with 15 minutes to play), beat Oklahoma, and lost to Texas. The latest result was a loss to a team that had only won twice this season and had lost their opening 3 SEC matches.
Admittedly, I was not paying close attention to most of the first half. However, the stats align with what I did notice. The Commodores were not very connected in their possession. The first half stats had them with 3 shots to Texas’s 2 with each team sending 1 shot off target. Vanderbilt was called for being offside 3 times while Texas was not. Both teams took 2 corners.
Each team turned up the pressure in the second half. After 5 total shots in the first half, there were 22 in the second half. Putting just over a third (35%) of their 17 shots on target is well below Vanderbilt’s 48% shot on target percentage for the season. Meeting the average would have meant 2 more shots on goal.
The ability by Texas to possess the ball, especially in the attacking quarter of midfield, was surprising. Coach Ambrose’s teams are almost always very strong in that area. I wish that I could offer a better critique of why THIS performance was so poor there.
Ally Bolig and Courtney Jones leading the team in shot attempts, most of them from very long range, is not normally a good sign. Jones is more likely to show up in dangerous areas, but Bollig normally holds deeper defensively. Sydney Watts being held to a single shot that she was unable to put on frame and Olivia Stafford only having 2 attempts, both on target, is not a recipe for success. A Texas defense that was not stout previously this season was able to control the Commodores’ attack to a shocking extent.
Defensively, Vanderbilt was just fine except for a couple crucial moments. The first was the first Longhorn goal. Amalia Villareal got a little space near the top of Vanderbilt’s 18-yard box due to a miscommunication in marking between Margo Matula and Olivia Stafford. She exploited it with a perfect shot that Sara Wojdelko had no chance to save. Then disaster struck in the 90th minute when Hannah McLaughlin misread a long ball over the top that. The bounce forced Wojdelko into a rash foul that was rightly punished with a red card. The nail in the Commodores’ coffin came after video review when a penalty kick was awarded with only 10 seconds to play due to foul from a corner kick.
The loss dropped Vanderbilt from #13 to #24 in the United Soccer Coaches’ Poll while TopDrawerSoccer.com had the Commodores fall out of the Top 25 from #16. It is the first time Vanderbilt has been unranked in either poll. They will have plenty of chances to prove they belong back in the Top 25, but the offensive production needs to perk back up.
Vanderbilt will try to rebound at home when the Auburn Tigers come to West End. Auburn is 5-3-3 (1-1-2) on the season. Auburn one common opponents to Vanderbilt in the regular season but also faced another in a exhibition. Oddly, they reversed the results. Pre-season, Auburn went to Memphis and picked up a 2-0 win, but it is hard to know how each team treated that match. To open the season, Auburn dropped a 1-0 result to Louisville at home.
The only other notable non-conference result was an 0-2 loss at BYU who was ranked #11 at that point but is currently unranked. Their SEC matches so far have been a 1-1 draw at Ole Miss, a 1-0 win hosting Texas A&M, a 1-1 draw at Mississippi State, and a 1-3 loss at home to LSU.
For the Tigers, goals generally come from either Erin Flurey or Olivia Woodson. Flurey has 8 goals and an assist while Woodson has 4 tallies and 2 helpers. Taylor Chism with 2 goals and an assist is the only other player with multiple goals while 6 Tigers have scored once. Among them is Dylan Driver who does have 7 assists. Jordyn Crosby is goalless but is second in assists at 4.
Auburn is stout defensively and has only allowed opponents to score 8 times all season. They hold opponents to 7.6 shots (2.4 shots on goal) per game. Vanderbilt will need to be more clinical than they have been lately.
In goal, it is hard to judge a goalkeeper who has only faced 25 shots and has an 0.78 goals against average. Her 0.680 save percentage is not impressive, but it feels like a “small sample” issue with how well the defense is generally playing in front of her. She redshirted last season as a freshman.
Tonight’s 7 PM Central kickoff from the Vanderbilt Soccer/Lacrosse Complex is a key one. It is 80s/90s night, so there will be a free “puzzle cubes” for a certain number of fans. There will also be trivia and other fan giveaways. The match will be streamed on SEC Network+. I will be busy coaching a high school soccer team during most, if not all, of this one.
