At 2-12, already far below last year’s 9-8-1 performance, the Cornell women’s soccer team insists that it still holds a champion’s mentality.
“We haven’t lost our fight, and we know what we can do,” sophomore midfielder Stephanie Setyadi said.
“We’ve been disappointed, but we know that our record doesn’t show what we’re capable of,” the midfielder commented. “Even though we’ve lost in some games, we’ve played really well. If we come out like we did against Brown and against Syracuse, the next game should be ours.”
The Red hosts Bucknell today at 4:00 p.m. on Berman Field, in what will be its last non-conference game of the season. Forward Sophia Smith scored the lone Cornell goal in last year’s 1-1 tie, but will be watching from the sideline this time around. Smith tore her meniscus in her knee earlier this year, but leaves behind a capable group of freshmen strikers to provide the scoring.
“I think we’ve done very well this season,” Setyadi added. “We definitely miss her, but we have forwards who are definitely capable of filling in the position.”
Bucknell (7-7-1) enters Ithaca losers of their last two after failing to capitalize from its early leads. Against Lafayette, Bucknell went up 2-1 in the first half before surrendering two unanswered goals for the 3-2 upset. Although Cornell holds an all-time record of 5-0-1 against the Bison, it will need to execute cleanly in order to keep the streak alive. The Red defense has been shaky during the first few minutes of halves in games this year, lacking energy and committing agonizing mistakes.
In its last meeting against Brown, the Red fell behind 1-0 in just fifty seconds after of the gun. Sophomore midfielder Sarah Olsen eventually found the equalizer, but ultimately Cornell came up short in the 2-1 loss.
“We have a tendency to not wake up until we make a mistake,” Setyadi said.
“We think that we’re never going to let it happen again, but we sometimes let ourselves get into a slow start, and that needs to be fixed.”
“I think it used to be a matter of focus, like we need a goal to be scored against us for us to focus,” junior defender Julie DeMichele said. “But that’s not really the case now, and we do breakdown sometimes. I think that it just comes down to the mistakes.”
Archived article by Simon Chan