Temple Women’s Soccer Unable to Comeback after Conceding Early vs UCF
Written By: Max Green
Photo Courtesy of: Temple Women’s Soccer Twitter
In the first game for Temple Women’s Soccer in over a year, they were immediately tested as they played one of the top teams in the conference in UCF.
The Owls tried their hardest but found themselves outmatched against this strong UCF team. This started early in the game when the Owls gave up a goal to UCF’s freshman midfielder, Katie Bradly, within three minutes of kickoff.
“Our game is low, and when you’re playing the caliber of a UCF, you know that chances are going to be difficult to come by for us, so you know you go into hoping to create a handful of chances, so knowing three minutes into the game you’re kind of digging yourself out of a hole from one zero,” said Head Coach Nick Bochette.
Temple would not give up; however, they just got to work. They continued to generate chances throughout the first half, trying to find an equalizer.
“I thought the girls responded well to it, they didn’t hang their heads, and we didn’t panic,” said Coach Bochette.
Unfortunately, the comeback would endure another obstacle as Owls junior midfielder Hailey Gutowski would have to leave the game with an injury after taking a stray hand to the face.
“Of course, it’s an impact. She’s an important player to us. Watching it back, it’s completely unlucky; there was no intent by anyone, basically caught a spare hand or arm in the face. We’re going to check on her again. Last I knew, she was still waiting to be seen by a doctor. She’s in good hands with our medical staff,” said Coach Bochette.
Following this setback, the Owls would only continue to suffer as two more goals would find their way past junior goalkeeper Kamryn Stablein, both off UCF Junior’s foot forward Malory Olsen. One goal coming with around seven minutes before halftime and the other coming in the closing minutes for extra insurance.
The UCF Golden Knights would finish with a 3-0 victory over the Owls. Their first win of the season in what was also their first game of the season. The Owls fall to 0-1 after this season’s opening loss.
Coach Bochette when asked about how UCF’s high pressing offense affected Temple’s game plan, had this to say, “I thought they were good and organized up the field. We expected that, so we had a game plan that took that into account. That being said, it’s like Mike Tyson says ‘everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face,’ and that first goal was our punch in the face, and it’s hard to stick to a game plan after that, but I thought our girls did a great job doing so.”
Temple will now be on a two-game road trip this week as they will face Villanova this Thursday, February 18th, to try and bring their record back to .500. Then will be traveling down to South Florida to take on USF next Sunday, February 21st.
