RUSTON – The Bulldogs fell short to the Alabama Crimson Tide in Thursday's season opener, 6-2, at Robert Mack Caruthers Field.
The Tide opened the scoring early in the 10th minute on a header coming from a cross pass on the right edge of the 18-yard box before doubling their advantage just before halftime on a corner service turned into another header bounced into the lower left corner of the net.
Alabama jumped to a 3-0 lead just under four minutes into the second half before Tech would strike the scoreboard for the first time this season on freshman
Reagan Roberts' first career goal in her first career appearance.
The Prosper, Texas native took a pass at midfield and dribbled down to about 10 yards outside of the box before firing a shot to the lower left corner of the goal. The Crimson Tide goalkeeper attempted to squeeze the ball into her chest, but instead found the ball fall between her arms and roll into the net.
Alabama jumped back out to a three-goal advantage in the 61st minute, but Tech still let their presence be known as
Madison Pensom scored her first career goal on a corner servce from
Maeva Costenaro, who notched her first career dish.
The Crimson Tide closed out the match with goals in the 68th and 79th minute.
Pensom led the Bulldogs with three shots and two in frame with Roberts and redshirt junior
Ashley Leonhart each adding two shots of their own. Freshmen
Abby Hanton,
Peyton Wiseman and
Alexe Drolet each earned their first career starts along with junior
Layla Thompson.
Roberts,
Alexandria Weatherspoon,
Lydia Daniels,
Leyla Llanos Boursiquot and
Carrigan Gekas also notched their first collegiate appearances.
Head Coach Steve Voltz following Thursday's match:
"We're glad we got it in with the weather earlier in the day, but we are disappointed, and I'm glad our women are disappointed because there was more in there. Watching our women walk off the field knowing there was more in there shows me that we're on the right track. Again, when you're playing an opponent like Alabama with players like that—obviously you're going to take advantage of the mistakes we made. So, this is on us for providing too many mistakes. We did learn a lot about our group and the fight that's in their group, and now how can we minimize those mistakes and take advantage of theirs. Overall, it was exactly what we needed to get out of this game. The result, we wanted a little bit more."
Head Coach Steve Voltz on how the team has progressed and gained confidence since the start of the preseason:
"That's part of preseason and growth. We have 18 freshmen and sophomores out of our 25 players and a lot of them played tonight. Everyone got in a little bit, and we wanted to learn about who is ready for prime time, and some are just not. Now our job is to get them ready, train them, work with them, and the ones that are ready are going to play more minutes, play longer and we have to turn around and play a very, very tough McNeese team. But the progress that people are seeing that are involved in the game is clear there. We see it too, now we just have to hammer it home. The mindset is to compete, which our women did for 90 minutes."
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