With both University of Memphis soccer teams playing each weekend it can be difficult to keep up with all of the action. We’ve come up with a weekly notebook that will fill you in on all you need to know every week throughout the season.
Week in Review
With conference play gearing up this weekend for both the men’s and women’s soccer teams it would’ve been ideal to get a few wins to gain some momentum going into the conference openers, but instead the Memphis teams took losses in all three games this week.
The first two losses came over the weekend when the Lady Tigers (4-3-1) traveled to Western Kentucky (4-2-2) on Friday and took a 2-1 loss, and then returned home Sunday evening only to lose to Ole Miss (6-2-2) by the same score line. While the scores may have been the same, head coach Brooks Monaghan certainly had a much different opinion about his team’s performance from the first game than he did the second.
“If you want to talk about Friday (against Western Kentucky) we can talk about Friday, because we were crap — (the players) will admit it, I’ll admit it,” Monaghan said. “Tonight I knew that probably they were going to have more shots, and that was okay. But we stuck to the game plan, did it really well, and all I can do is come up with that and hope that it gives us a chance to win and it did, but unfortunately we didn’t get the result.”
The Lady Tigers were able to strike first against the Rebels in the 8th minute when defender Elysia Masters whipped in a free kick that was flicked on by junior forward Valerie Sanderson and headed into goal by freshman Marie Levasseur. Memphis was then able to withstand several Ole Miss shots before the Rebels finally broke through with a CeCe Kizer goal in the 65th minute. The game went into extra time, where Kizer ended it with another goal in the 98th.
The Tigers were shorthanded, playing without some key players including leading goal-scorer Elizabeth Woerner and senior defender Marissa Duguay. Despite the loss, Monaghan emphasized that it was a solid performance that the team could be proud of and that made the team better.
The men’s team on the other hand took their fifth loss of the season on the road Tuesday, as they were stomped 4-0 by Louisville (4-2-2). The Tigers (0-5-1) were able to hang with the Cardinals in the early going, but Louisville pulled ahead off of a Tate Schmitt goal in the 30th minute. The Cardinals then scored two quick goals right out of the halftime gates to put the contest away.
Lady Tigers See Defense Slip
The Lady Tigers had a very strong start to the season defensively, yielding only six goals in their first five games, and five of those games coming in a somewhat fluky 5-1 loss at Samford. However, since the team implemented a new system to try to boost the Tigers’ goal scoring that defense has begun to slip, with seven goals conceded in the last three games.
Additionally, the team’s goal scoring has been down as well ever since the team scored four goals against Idaho two weeks ago. In the two games since the Lady Tigers have scored one goal each, and the team has scored exactly one goal this season in every game except for the shootout with Idaho.
Monaghan said that he’s still committed to the newer system that puts more attacking players forward, but that with the injuries the team has right now the team is currently without some of the key players that complement the system. The slip up in the last couple of games could certainly be mainly due to the injuries, but it’s certainly worth seeing if the trend continues.
Men’s soccer goalless yet again
The Tigers have been in the midst of a devastating goal drought that’s lasted nearly the entire season so far, and Tuesday night against Louisville the team finished it’s fifth consecutive game without a goal scored.
Head coach Richard Mulrooney is still searching for answers on the attacking front, but implementing a brand new system similar to the women’s team appears to be off the table for now due to concerns of it causing the team’s defense to suffer.
“I think we’ve done a decent job defensively,” Mulrooney said. “If we take a defender out or we take another extra midfielder out to put a player up top then we’re weakening another part of the field, and I just think that defensively we can’t concede goals, but we’d be a fool not to try other stuff. There’s still some other things that we’re working on to try to get the goals.”
Up Next
Conference play kicks off for both Memphis soccer teams this week, with the women’s team taking on Tulsa (9-1) on the road Thursday evening and the men playing a home match against UCF (2-3) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Mike Rose Soccer Complex.
Additionally, the Lady Tigers have one last non-conference clash vs. Gonzaga (1-4-4) at 5 p.m. Saturday at Mike Rose, with the men’s game against UCF to follow as part of Memphis soccer’s alumni weekend.
“It’s an opportunity for us to be at home for alumni weekend, hopefully we can strike early and see the game out,” Mulrooney said of the men’s team’s game against UCF. “We’ve played a tough schedule, but whether you’re playing Louisville or Northern Kentucky or SIUE there’s no easy games.”
Freshman Marie Levasseur has two goals and two assists for the Lady Tigers this season.
