ST. LOUIS, MO – The Principia Women's Soccer team took on the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis at Maplewood High School on Tuesday evening. Though the Panthers outplayed the Eutectics for much of the game and scored two goals for the first time this season, a late comeback by UHSP sunk Principia to 0-5.
After an early goal by UHSP,
Dachelle Carter tied things up late in the first half with a beautiful finish over the goalie for her first collegiate goal. After assisting on the first goal,
Rachael Williams then got one of her own early in the second half after a well-placed free kick by goalkeeper
Christin Walls. The sailing ball found the head of
Kaylee Kleist, who sent a perfect flick on to put Williams one-on-one with the keeper as she gave Principia a 2-1 lead. Unfortunately, a Eutectics equalizer followed by a converted PK with 12 minutes left gave the UHSP women their first ever win over the Panthers.
The Panthers came in with several things they were looking to keep developing in their play, and they saw progress in many of them. With two fantastic goals and outshooting UHSP 17 to 12 – including Carter ripping one off the crossbar late in the game – there was a lot of good to build on. Captain
Olivia Scott had an especially great game as she was a brick wall defensively against some strong Eutectic strikers. She also helped get the Panther attack started with how composed she was playing out of the back.
In the midfield,
Zayana Brown's understanding of balancing her defensive and offensive responsibilities is accelerating, and her impact was huge tonight.
Aylin Acosta was a dangerous playmaker and put UHSP's defense on their heels every time she was on the ball.
Rachael Williams did everything that was asked of her and even got her goal coming out of the midfield.
Dachelle Carter continues to be a force to be reckoned with, as she's quickly stepped into the college game and takes big strides in every contest. Her fantastic speed and power have made it very hard for opponents to stop her.
"I'm proud of how we responded after every goal we allowed today," Coach Thomas said afterwards. "We didn't feeling sorry for ourselves and immediately were on the attack creating chances until the final whistle. That's the mindset which will get us results down the road. We have goals and targets that we work on each week, as well as responsibilities that we set for each game. Tonight was our first night that we felt really good about hitting most of our targets and meeting our responsibilities. Our next step is to marry the performance we put together on the pitch with the result on the scoreboard. We can feel that it's coming."
Up Next: The Panthers will host junior college, Southwestern Illinois College, on Thursday at 6:00 pm for an exhibition match as they keep building towards conference play.
Hear more comments from Coach Thomas after the game:
