On Saturday, we played Virginia Wesleyan, a team we had a tough battle with last year that led to an overtime victory for us 2-1. This year, we had the same back and forth game. Virginia Wesleyan scored early in the first half, and for about the next 15 minutes, they kept that lead. We scored very late in the half to tie the score going into halftime. Tying the score was important in this game, because it was like a fresh start for us, our mentality was that it was now a 0-0 game, anyone's game. At halftime, we wiped the slate clean; all the mistakes we had made in the first half were behind us.
We promised ourselves that during the second half we would step up our play, and fix the things we knew we had to work on from the first half. Coach made sure to reinforce the importance of doing the little things that we lacked in the first half, and the importance of coming out from halftime ready to score. We definitely listened to what Coach said, and managed to create many opportunities for ourselves, we just had trouble finishing with goals. Virginia Wesleyan also came out ready to score, like we had anticipated, scoring a goal midway through the half. Frustrated with the way we were playing, knowing we could do better, Coach called a time out to get us pumped up.
She said that we should stop at nothing to put the ball in the goal, which should always hold true. About 50 seconds after the timeout, we scored a goal. We worked the ball well up the field, and used our forwards to get in front of Virginia Wesleyan, tying the score yet again.
We played hard, but Virginia Wesleyan ended up scoring in the last minutes of the game to grasp the win 3-2. We took this loss pretty hard, and let's just say it was a long bus ride home.
We had Sunday off, but will need to be ready for our game against EMU on Wednesday.
