IU Columbus’ Kate Hardin, left, attempts to cross the ball while marked by St. Mary-of-the-Woods’ Maya Snider during a soccer match at the Richard Wigh Soccer Complex in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, October 19, 2023.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
After falling behind 5-0 at halftime Thursday afternoon, the IU Columbus women’s soccer team set a goal to win the second half.
While the Crimson Pride weren’t quite able to accomplish that, they did put up a much more solid performance in the final 45 minutes that in the first half in what ended in a 7-1 River States Conference loss to St. Mary-of-the-Woods.
“Goals aside, we just looked at overall playing better, so from a defensive standpoint, just making sure we had our marks sorted out better, trying to create more offensive opportunities, which we definitely did in that second half,” IUC coach Jason Gough said. “So I was really proud of the way they responded that second half.”
Trailing 7-0, the Crimson Pride (2-9, 1-6) got on the board in the 88th minute on a goal by Kylie Hardin.
The Pomeroys (4-5-4, 3-2-2) outshot IUC 27-17, putting 20 shots on goal to 10 for the Crimson Pride. Ana Jackson allowed four goals and recorded three saves in the first 32 minutes, and Vanessa Tochimani gave up three goals and posted 10 saves over the final 58 minutes.
“Every game we look at as a learning opportunity, how we can grow, how we can get better from the last game,” Gough said. “Even games like this that got out of hand pretty quickly, our goal was to come out and … ‘How can we come out and play better in that second half and win that second half and then build upon it for Saturday?’”
IUC had only 14 of its 17 players available, then saw a couple of those players injured on Thursday.
“We’ve had our ups and downs, as you kind of would expect with a first-year program,” Gough said. “Obviously with a small roster number and then dealing with injuries as they’ve progressed throughout the season, but I’m really proud of the way that they’ve fought through injuries, and they’ve overcome a lot of adversity in a short amount of time. I’m rerally impressed with the way they responded.”
The Crimson Pride entered Thursday’s game in ninth place in the conference. The top eight make the conference tournament.
IUC has three games left in the regular season, including one home game. The Crimson Pride visit IU East at Eaton (Ohio) High School on Saturday, host IU Kokomo on Thursday and visit Point Park in Pittsburgh on Oct. 28.
“You never know,” Gough said. “Any game, you can come out and win. I watch a lot of football, so you know on any given Sunday, you never know what can happen. It’s the same thing with soccer. Any given day, a team can go out and perform well. We’ve had a lot of performances that we’ve played pretty well and just didn’t get the result that we wanted. Even some of the games that we’ve won, I don’t think that those were necessarily the best games that we’ve played as a team. It’s just trying to piece together for a full 90 minutes, and hopefully, we’ll get a couple people healthy that will help with that.”
