(Photo: Xavier Litman/WCSN)
By the time the clock struck 90, freshman forward Savannah Maley found herself hobbling off the field with an exhausted look on her face. She had been sent to the ground repeatedly during Arizona State women’s soccer bout vs. Kent State on Sunday Morning. The worst of it was a head collision in the 69th minute with Kent State sophomore Abby Breitschuh.
Maley’s condition at the end of the match was indicative of ASU’s performance as it limped over the finish line. It was an unsatisfying outing from the Sun Devils that did not please ASU head coach Graham Winkworth.
“Even more disappointing from a performance standpoint,” Winkworth said. “I can understand if we pick up bad results while playing well, but today we picked up a bad result while playing really poorly.”
Following what would end up being a 1-1 draw, it wasn’t all bad for the Sun Devils as Maley picked up the first home goal of her career for ASU. When the ball popped out of the box to her in the 15th minute she knew she had to bury it. Just two minutes prior she had sent her headed shot, off a perfect, Junior, Keri Mathew’s cross, wide left of the post. This time however she made no mistake in her finish, burying a left-footed shot from the top of the box into the near post, opening the scoring for both teams on the day.
“Coach has been talking about my finishing on heading, So once I got my head on, like contact on I was like, ‘Oh I gotta finish one today, so I’m glad I finally got one,'” Maley said.
In the 16th minute, Maley nearly led ASU to its second goal of the half when she hit a beautiful outside-of-the-foot through ball, to freshman Ashley Leonhart, unlocking the entire back line in one cutting pass. Leonhart then laid a cross right on top of the head of graduate forward Florence Vaillancourt, whose header went stinging off the crossbar.
The rest of the game proved to be less fruitful going forward for ASU as they would not score again. Outside of that stretch of play, there wasn’t much more to write home about offensively. They finished with 11 shots and only two on target for the game which wasn’t enough for Winkworth.
“11 shots, two on goal, you don’t shoot on target you’re not gonna score on goal so that’s very disappointing as well.” He said post-game.
Sun Devil soccer fans might have noticed the absence of graduate captain Lieske Carleer from the game. She could be seen supporting her team from the sidelines with a soft knee brace on. Her leadership and energy were missed by the team, as injuries have begun to pile up for the Sun Devils
“She’s out injured again so it is what it is,” Winkworth said. “Unfortunately, we got 10 of our squad out injured at the moment it’s unfortunate but that’s part of soccer.”
Freshman Allison Carabin stepped into the starting lineup in the center of defense in place of her injured captain. She not only assumed the lead center-back position but also the main build-out duties usually executed by Carleer. There isn’t quite a replacement at the level of Carleer yet but Carabin did well in her minutes, in the center-back role, during the match.
“Yeah she’s very young,” Winkworth said. “Obviously, I would rather have Lieske playing that role but when you’ve got so many players out here, the players are gonna step up and I’m proud of her for taking on that responsibility.”
It took until the 53rd minute for the Golden Flashes to take advantage of the Carleer-less Sun Devil defense. Alanna Raimondo slipped in behind a reeling back-line and slotted her one-one chance from just inside the six-yard box past ASU sophomore goalie Pauline Nelles. That play, equalizing the score at one apiece, was one of the last quality chances either team saw during the game.
Both teams will look to bounce back and generate more offense going forward from here. Kent State will return home to Dix Stadium in Kent, Ohio to face Duquesne Univesity next Sunday, Sept. 10th at 1 p.m. Arizona State will return to the training grounds this week before traveling down to Tuscon to play in the Arizona Classic. They will face Utah State on Thursday, Sept. 7 at 4 p.m. before a huge future Big 12 conference preview game against the Texas Tech Red Raiders, on Sunday, September 10 at 9 a.m.
