The Creighton women’s soccer team took a punch to the gut on Friday night when Kansas State freshman Laramie Hall banged home the equalizer with 4:54 remaining in regulation to earn the Wildcats a draw in front of 811 fans at Morrison Stadium.
On paper this will look like the result each team earned with the Bluejays getting a goal early, Kansas State answering late, and there only being a one shot difference in the end between the two sides. However, despite the draw on the scoreboard and the shot disparity only favoring the Bluejays by a 16-15 margin, one team left the pitch feeling like they lost.
“That’s why soccer is such a great game,” Creighton head coach Ross Paule said. “It’s a 90-minute game and if you don’t perform every minute then you give yourself a chance to give away the tying goal.
“If we’re sharper around the goal the game is out of reach. It’s a very disappointing tie. Very, very disappointing tie.”
Between the 18-yard boxes Creighton controlled the action. They were better at connecting passes, they were better at creating chances and combining, and for most of the match they locked up the attacking players for the Wildcats.
But all of that was negated as they failed to build on the early lead they took not even six minutes into the match when freshman midfielder Caeley Lordemann scored her third goal of the season — which have all come in the last three matches — on a straight on shot from just beyond the penalty box.
Throughout the ensuing 79+ minutes of action, the Bluejays knocked on the door of adding to the lead. But they couldn’t find that final connection to put another goal on the board, even missing just high on an empty net from about 20 yards away.
“I think we just kind of lacked composure in front of the box,” Creighton junior midfielder Darby Hugunin said. “This is one of those games where once we get that second goal, then we get another one and another one and the game is over, and it doesn’t end up like this.”
The reason it ended up like “this” was because of a costly break down right in front of the Creighton goal that led to an open point blank shot by Wildcat freshman midfielder Laramie Hall. A centering pass by sophomore forward Tatum Wagner set up the play to Hall around the edge of the six-yard box. One touch was all it took for Hall to redirect it past freshman goalkeeper McKenzie Meola to even things up in the 86th minute.
While Creighton’s second-year head coach admits that conceding the equalizer late was the most disappointing part of the match, his thoughts drifted back to the fact the Jays didn’t put away their chances before Hall even had a chance to tie the match.
“You can’t say one or the other, but to me it’s more disappointing to give away the goal in that last part of the game,” Paule said. “On the other hand, you score that second, and that third goal, it changes the game. Then you can really lock down the defense and try to build from there. It’s just disappointing, all around.
“From the clear chances we had we just have to finish. There is no excuse. When the ball is near your head you’ve got to dive through with your head, and when you’re inside the box you’ve got to have a sharper touch or one-touch finish. You’ve got to have that killer instinct in the box and we didn’t have that.”
Check out Adam Streur’s photo gallery from the game:
Even immediately after their lead disappeared the Bluejays went right back to work in the attacking third of the field, nearly retaking the lead a minute and a half later. Senior forward Lauren Sullivan was knocked to the ground near the end line resulting in a penalty kick for the Bluejays with 3:36 remaining on the clock. Despite having scored the sixth-most goals in the 28-year history of Creighton Women’s Soccer, Sullivan is not normally the one who gets the call to finish the job when their is a foul in the box, even though most of those chances are actually created by her.
This time, however, she didn’t waste any time picking herself up off the turf and lining up to face off with Kansas State goalkeeper Miranda Larkin. The Wildcat coaching staff could have pulled her and wouldn’t have mattered as Sullivan shanked the shot wide to the right of the post, then covered her face with her hands after watching the ball bounce off the back wall.
The disappointment still showed itself on her face after the match, but that didn’t matter to her head coach, who said he would still let her take the shot if he had it to do all over again.
“She’s a goal scorer. She’s a finisher. She wanted it and I hope that if she got fouled in the box again that she would want to take it again,” Paule said. “I trust that she would be able to finish it. PK’s are something that the best players in the world miss, and what you want that best player to do is step up the next time and put it away.”
Creighton still had chances in the box to score a game-winner, but after two 45-minute halves followed by two 10-minute overtime periods they settled for their second draw of the season to improve to 2-1-2, while Wildcats moved to 1-2-2 in their inaugural season as a women’s soccer program.
Next up for the Bluejays is a Sunday afternoon match in Brookings, South Dakota against the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. The Sunday turnarounds haven’t brought the best out of Creighton of late, and that challenge becomes even more daunting when Friday’s late match and emotional result is added into the mix.
Regardless of recent history, Coach Paule wasn’t in the mood to talk about the excuses about a quick turnaround and having to travel on a recovery day.
“That’s what we have in front of us and we’re going to deal with it,” he said. “We have to get better on our recovery. We’re looking at how we recover, what we’re eating after this game, and taking care of our bodies tomorrow. We’ll learn from what just happened, put it out of our mind and move forward. That’s all you can do when you have this quick of a turnaround.
“The result really hurts, but I hope it hurts to where it drives us to start moving towards our real potential.”
Kick off between the Bluejays and Jackrabbits is set for 1:00 p.m. at Fishback Soccer Park in Brookings. Creighton is 9-1-1 all-time against South Dakota State, including a 5-0-0 mark on the road.
