After two gut-wrenching losses last week to Fresno St. and Ivy rival Pennsylvania, the Cornell women’s soccer team hopes to rebound today at Colgate.
The Red (1-5, 1-1 Ivy) has lost its last three in a row, but four out of its five losses have been by one goal. “We have always played well”, said junior co-captain Julie DeMichele, “but our biggest problem is putting the ball in the back of the net.”
Going in to the second half of Sunday’s tough loss to Penn, the Red was down 2-0 and the game appeared to be out of sight. However, it rallied back and with 2:45 left in the game sophomore Sarah Olsen launched a 20-yard shot over the outstretched arms of the Penn keeper Vannessa Scotto to put Cornell on the board. Then with less than a minute left, junior back Ellen Daly’s shot just missed the goal, putting away any chance of a Cornell comeback.
“The team is slowly coming together,” senior forward Erica Olson said, “the Penn game was a growing experience even though we lost. We just didn’t capitalize.”
In practice this week the team focused on shooting and finishing to try and remedy its ailing offense. “We had a lot of opportunities against Penn, we need to focus on finishing,” senior co-captain Sarah Natchez said.
Last year against Colgate, the Red won in dramatic fashion, when then-freshman Sarah Olsen scored with 4:45 left in overtime. In that game, Cornell came out firing with 26 shots, more than doubling Colgate’s total of 12. “Colgate is always a good match and a close fight. We have a really good team, and if we play like we know we can, things will fall in to place,” Olson remarked.
“They play a tough game, but they aren’t any better. They play a physical brand of soccer, where we play a finesse game,” senior goalie Meghan Cauzillo said.
In Sunday’s game, Cauzillo made nine saves on 11 shots against Penn in the losing effort.
The Red is not waving the white flag just yet, after starting the season 1-5. “After the Penn game there were a lot of sad faces and morale was way down. But these last couple of practices moral was way up,” Cauzillo said.
This is a must win for the Red if it wants to finish above the .500 mark. The team feels that all the pieces are in place for a mid-season run, provided the squad can put the ball in the net.
Archived article by Josh Vlasto