Lady Vols Soccer ⚽️ Tennessee @ Virginia Tech 11/15 Friday 7PM Blacksburg VA ⚽️ NCAA TOURNAMENT First Round

#4,813
#4,813

Lady Vols Play Hoosiers To 2-2 Draw​



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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- The Lady Vols erased a two-goal deficit to play Indiana to a 2-2 draw in front of a crowd of 1,059 in Regal Stadium on Thursday.

Tennessee was dominant offensively, outshooting the Hoosiers 28-6 on the night.

Redshirt-senior Jaida Thomas and sophomore Kameron Simmonds found the net for UT. Redshirt-sophomore Ally Zazzara made the start in goal, logging two saves and allowing two goals. Redshirt-freshman Abby Reisz played the second half, tallying one save.

Paige Webber and Sofia Black were the goal-scorers for IU.

"We only gave up six shots in 90 minutes. (Our back line played) really good," said Tennessee head coach Joe Kirt.

"They were moving on the ball, defending hard. We had good opportunities. I'm proud of our entire team's response to being down 2-0. They all worked extremely hard to get us back into the game."

The first half was a back-and-forth affair with the Lady Vols outshooting IU 7-2 until the Hoosiers scored twice in rapid succession.

In the 34th minute, Hope Paredes played the ball through the Tennessee defense, and Weber dribbled into the box before sliding it past Zazzara.

The Hoosiers struck again 30 seconds later when Black rocketed a ball off a Tennessee defender and into the side net.

The Lady Vols got off three quick shots with 2:30 left in the half, but the first two were blocked, and graduate Nayeli Diaz's attempt across the face of the goal missed just wide of the far post, so the game went into halftime with Indiana leading, 2-0.

The Lady Vols wasted no time getting on the board in the second half, with sophomore Macaira Midgley playing a ball through the box in the 52nd minute that Simmonds ran onto and buried far post.

Midgley nearly got the equalizer in the 78th, getting a shot off from eight yards out off a serve by Thomas, but a Hoosiers defender slid to knock the shot over the endline.

A minute later, Thomas one-touch volleyed a beautifully placed ball from sophomore Ally Brown past the IU keeper from close range to tie the game at two-all.

The Lady Vols dominated possession in the final 10 minutes but couldn't find a third goal, and the game ended in a 2-2 draw.

UP NEXT: Tennessee will host Radford in its final home match of the non-conference slate at 7 p.m. ET on Thurs., Sept. 7.

TRACKING THOMAS: Jaida Thomas scored her first goal of the season against the Hoosiers, moving her career total to 39 to pull within four of tying Kylee Rossi at No. 1 all time in career goals scored at UT.

SIMMONDS ON FIRE: Sophomore Kameron Simmonds scored her fifth goal of the season against IU, surpassing her 2022 total of four. She has scored those five goals on just 19 shots, and she is currently tied for first in the SEC with Jordyn Rhodes of Kentucky for total goals (5) and points (10).
 
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#4,816
#4,816
Vol67 said:
Kirt is not a good HC
Click to expand...

Here's one example why: Lawton has been one of our best players. She should be in the midfield, IMO, where she could help bolster a mediocre
unit. I don't know where she played last night--but she's been playing at forward, which is not a natural position for someone with her size and build, though she's been effective in a substitute role. Instead of her minutes going up, her minutes went down last night--24 mins. Dumb.

IMO, it will be hard for us to beat anyone good--and we haven't even played anyone good yet--with Washington and Midgley as starting mids. Midgley can pass, has some qualities, but I question how good she can be defensively as she's quite small and gets pushed off the ball, and I don't see her or Washington giving us anything in attack. Midgley has started 5 games and had her first shot of the season last night---1 shot, 0 SOG,, 0 assists, 0 goals for the season. As for Washington, the coaches have botched the defensive mid position: It was one of two holes that Kirt HAD to plug effectively this season, and he seems to have failed--either because he's playing Washington and he shouldn't be--meaning Agresti could be better but Kirt fails to see it--OR Washington is the best defensive mid we have and he didn't find someone better, as she's simply not a good soccer player. This is her 5th year in the program, and she's has made some modest improvements in her game--a very nice assist against ETSU--but the bar was pretty much at ground level going into this year. Last night she was primarily responsible for the first IU goal as the IU player drove straight down the heart of our defensive half with the ball before passing to the forward, who beat Renie, who seemed not to be paying much attention, for the goal. It is the job of the defensive mid to stop the ball when it is entering our attacking half. That is a basic responsibility of a defensive mid. Instead, Washington was jogging along on the outside, apparently thinking someone else was going to pick up the ball. On the second IU goal, Washington was in our attacking half of the field while IU had the ball in our defensive half--in other words, WAY out of position.

I have never EVER seen a soccer player whose style is to jog around the field. Kirt simply doesn't know how to objectively analyze his talent, in some cases. He was playing Washington nearly 30 minutes in some games last year--as a sub for attacking Fusco--when she's never shown a scintilla of attacking capability. Talk about a head-scratcher. Made no sense. That was one of many things that told me that Kirt is not especially sharp.

On the other hand, Fusco is an outstanding soccer player--or would be if she could put the ball in the net. She's got 25 shots for the season, 12 SOG--a decent number (almost 50 percent)--but only 1 goal, and that was yet another shot that she hit straight at the keeper--it just happened to go through the legs. She has got to learn to improve her shot placement--it's an issue for her and the team. We had 28 shots last night. That is SUPER good--but only 8 were on goal; that's not good. A couple of terrible defensive mistakes and poor shooting equals another bad result.

We will play at least 4 or 5 SEC teams that will be better than SMU or IU, I think. Our RPI can't be good right now, and playing/beating lowly Radford and Florida Atlantic is not going to improve it. That means we'll have to raise our level and win some tough SEC games or we won't even make the NCAA this year.
 
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#4,817
#4,817
turbovol said:
Here's one example why: Lawton has been one of our best players. She should be in the midfield, IMO, where she could help bolster a mediocre
unit. I don't know where she played last night--but she's been playing at forward, which is not a natural position for someone with her size and build, though she's been effective in a substitute role. Instead of her minutes going up, her minutes went down last night--24 mins. Dumb.

IMO, it will be hard for us to beat anyone good--and we haven't even played anyone good yet--with Washington and Midgley as starting mids. Midgley can pass, has some qualities, but I question how good she can be defensively as she's quite small and gets pushed off the ball, and I don't see her or Washington giving us anything in attack. Midgley has started 5 games and had her first shot of the season last night---1 shot, 0 SOG,, 0 assists, 0 goals for the season. As for Washington, the coaches have botched the defensive mid position: It was one of two holes that Kirt HAD to plug effectively this season, and he seems to have failed--either because he's playing Washington and he shouldn't be--meaning Agresti could be better but Kirt fails to see it--OR Washington is the best defensive mid we have and he didn't find someone better, as she's simply not a good soccer player. This is her 5th year in the program, and she's has made some modest improvements in her game--a very nice assist against ETSU--but the bar was pretty much at ground level going into this year. Last night she was primarily responsible for the first IU goal as the IU player drove straight down the heart of our defensive half with the ball before passing to the forward, who beat Renie, who seemed not to be paying much attention, for the goal. It is the job of the defensive mid to stop the ball when it is entering our attacking half. That is a basic responsibility of a defensive mid. Instead, Washington was jogging along on the outside, apparently thinking someone else was going to pick up the ball. On the second IU goal, Washington was in our attacking half of the field while IU had the ball in our defensive half--in other words, WAY out of position.

I have never EVER seen a soccer player whose style is to jog around the field. Kirt simply doesn't know how to objectively analyze his talent, in some cases. He was playing Washington nearly 30 minutes in some games last year--as a sub for attacking Fusco--when she's never shown a scintilla of attacking capability. Talk about a head-scratcher. Made no sense. That was one of many things that told me that Kirt is not especially sharp.

On the other hand, Fusco is an outstanding soccer player--or would be if she could put the ball in the net. She's got 25 shots for the season, 12 SOG--a decent number (almost 50 percent)--but only 1 goal, and that was yet another shot that she hit straight at the keeper--it just happened to go through the legs. She has got to learn to improve her shot placement--it's an issue for her and the team. We had 28 shots last night. That is SUPER good--but only 8 were on goal; that's not good. A couple of terrible defensive mistakes and poor shooting equals another bad result.

We will play at least 4 or 5 SEC teams that will be better than SMU or IU, I think. Our RPI can't be good right now, and playing/beating lowly Radford and Florida Atlantic is not going to improve it. That means we'll have to raise our level and win some tough SEC games or we won't even make the NCAA this year.
Click to expand...
Did Fusco kick field goals at the HS level?
 
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#4,818
#4,818
3meeks2001 said:
Simmonds and Runyon do. I don't think the forwards are the issue
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They are both good and Runyan needs to play more. But, we have no one else on the team that can do what Jaida did last night which is strike the ball without bringing down to their feet. We almost always want it at our feet then we lean back striking and send it way over the net. Indiana no offensive juggernaut scored on their two goals on two low but hard strikes. Do we practice striking?
 
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#4,819
#4,819
Fusco is so frustrating she plays great soccer but it is like her frame of reference when striking is the keeper and not the goal. Of course from distance she gets under the ball almost everytime. A good coach would have corrected some of that.
 
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