The Oswego State women’s soccer team put together a dominant performance today as they added another W in the win column defeating the New Paltz Hawks (1-7-2), 4-1. The win by Oswego State improves their record to 4-1-2 on the season. However, it wasn’t the prettiest of starts to the game.
Although the Lakers dominated possession for much of the first half, New Paltz found a way to strike first. An Oswego State turnover in front of their own net led to an easy goal for New Paltz’s Gabriella Cabello to give the Hawks a 1-0 lead. This lead would be short lived though as just 29 seconds later Emma Geyer scored a beautiful goal for the Lakers off the crossbar and into the net to tie the game at one.
Going into the second half, head coach Brian McGrane didn’t mind being tied, but he only had one objective going in to the second half.
“Win,” McGrane said. “We didn’t defend well in the first half, we knew the grass was wet so that hurt us, but we wanted to come out with more energy in the second half.”
Oswego State certainly did just that and the Lakers scored three more times, two of them coming from Emma Geyer to give her the hat trick. The other Laker goal came from Audrey Burbidge, her third of the year.
Coach McGrane certainly gave her high praise on her impressive performance.
“I thought her anticipation and reaction were great,” McGrane said. “First half I thought her touch was a little bit off because of the skips of the ground, but her performance in the second half and everybody’s performance in the second half was much, much better.”
The Lakers looked like a tale of two different teams from the first half compared to the second. In the first half, although Oswego State dominated possession, they turned over the ball many times leading to the New Paltz’s first goal. Geyer would answr to tie it up for the Lakers at the half. The team looked extremely dominant during the second. Their sequence of passing was crisp and the execution was there as they had more scoring chances. The Lakers controlled time of possession even more than they did in the first half and there were no more turnovers on defense.
“I thought we played okay,” McGrane said. “I don’t think we’re a very good Friday team, we play halves. We have to be able to play a full 90 [minutes], and we’ll have to be better as far as playing a full 90 [minutes] tomorrow.”
Focus will be something the coaching staff will stress for tomorrow’s match with SUNY Oneonta, the same team they lost to last year in the SUNYAC Semi-Finals.
“We just need to be focused from the start,” McGrane said. “I think mentally we can’t take 10 minutes to get into the game because teams can bury you right there. We just got to be better for a full 90 [minutes].”
The Lakers will look to stay focused for a complete game as they take on the SUNY Oneonta Red Dragons tomorrow at 1 p.m. For right now, the Lakers will enjoy this win before their next test tomorrow.
