The University of North Florida women’s soccer team got their first road win of the season this past Sunday evening by defeating the Stetson University Hatters in a dominant showing at the Stetson Athletic Center.
The actual final score of the game doesn’t show how much pressure and control the Ospreys had during the complete 2-1 victory.
Not even five minutes into the game, the Ospreys scored a goal, courtesy of sophomore midfielder Chloe Lynch. The goal was set up by a nice pass from junior defender Lauren Weiss.
The Osprey’s pressure on the Hatters didn’t stop there. North Florida outshot the Hatters 6-1 for the first 20 minutes of the match. The Ospreys finished off the opening half outshooting the Hatters 7-0, continuing the great display of effort by North Florida.
The Ospreys led 1-0 at halftime and held the Hatters to just one shot for the whole period.
The second half wasn’t as smooth for either team. After a zero penalty first half, there were a total of six yellow cards in the period.
But this didn’t stop the Ospreys offensive attack. Following a Stetson goal scored in the 68th minute, the Ospreys scored not even one minute later.
The goal happened on a pass towards a mob of players crowding near the goal, with senior midfielder Kayla Bond navigating the ball away from the crowd and into the net.
The Ospreys were able to hold off the Hatters for the final 20 minutes of the game by keeping possession of the ball. North Florida won 2-1 and improved to 1-1 in Atlantic Sun Cconference play.
For the whole game, the Ospreys outshot the Hatters 24-7 and 14-4 with shots on goal.
When asked by North Florida athletics what led to the Ospreys win tonight, coach Eric Faulconer credited how the Ospreys were able to control the ball in search of the second goal.
“Great start, right? Chloe gets us on the board and I thought we were really just controlling the ball and trying to get that second goal and just didn’t come,” Faulconer said. “We knew we needed that second goal and unfortunately kind of made a mistake and they got the equalizer. But the response was fantastic, Kayla scored right after and kind of rolled out the result right there.”
Faulconer also mentioned how playing a difficult non-conference schedule helped prepare his team for conference road games like this.
“We’ve played eight games prior to this game against Stetson. All eight of those teams had a winning record. We got four results out of that and took four hits as well. We knew tonight we could come down here, playing the way we’ve been playing against those opponents that we could win tonight, and we did exactly what we needed to.”
The Ospreys will now head back to Hodges Stadium to face the Lipscomb University Bison on Thursday, September 21st. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
More information about this game and other Osprey sports can be found on the UNF Athletics website.
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