The Oswego State women’s soccer team’s season got underway Tuesday as they hosted St. Lawrence in the first game of the 2015 season.
Their campaign didn’t start off the way they had hoped to as the Lakers (0-1, 0-0 SUNYAC) dropped their home opener by a score of 0-2 to the Saints (1-0, 0-0 ECAC).
Head coach Brian McGrane shared his displeasure with his team’s performance and had only one word to describe their play on the field, “terrible”.
“No energy, no life,” McGrane said. “I’d like to say it’s because of St. Lawrence but mentally we just weren’t here… Just terrible.”
St. Lawrence controlled the game for most of the first half as they took five shots, two of which found the back of the net for goals while dominating time of possession. Hannah Merriam put the Saints up 1-0 less than ten minutes into the contest with a shot from nineteen yards out.
Then, almost twenty minutes later, sophomore Kaleigh White doubled St. Lawrence’s lead to give them a two-goal advantage over the Lakers.
Oswego in the first half managed only two shots and struggled mightily with keeping the ball in their opponent’s zone.
“Just giving balls away,” McGrane said was a major problem to his team’s struggles. “We probably turned the ball over in our defensive third and total in the first half probably 50 times.”
The Lakers picked it up in the second half as the time of possession was not so much one-sided toward the Saints and they were able to get seven shots on goal, just one fewer than St. Lawrence, who had eight.
Around the 25-minute mark, the Lakers thought that they had scored to cut the lead in half but the goal was waved off due to an offside call.
Oswego goalkeeper Melissa Siegfried finished the game with seven saves, six of which came in the second half, which kept the deficit at two.
Coach McGrane said that there is a lot he wants to work on in practice with the team before their next match but that the biggest adjustment that needs to be made is the amount of effort put forth.
“We need to be a little more hungry and aggressive in the final third,” he said. “You can’t have one player try beat five in the box. It’s something we talked about all preseason but it’s just going to take a lot of effort to get it done.”
Oswego returns to action and looks to earn their first win of the season this Friday when they host Pittsburgh-Greensburg at 3 p.m.
