Ferris State women’s soccer could not retain their undefeated streak as they lost to the Saginaw Valley State Cardinals on Friday, Oct. 6.
The Bulldogs (3-5-3, 1-4-2 in conference), who have beaten the Cardinals (7-2-2, 4-1-2 in conference) seven times in the past five seasons, failed to add another win as they lost 3-0.
Head coach Greg Henson stressed the importance of scoring following the loss.
“We have to find ways to get the ball in the back of the net,” Henson said. “When you don’t, you rely on asking yourself to be perfect defensively. We had three defensive miscues and they capitalized on all three.”
The Bulldogs’ scoring woes have been a trend throughout the season. The Bulldogs have not scored more than two goals since Sept. 3 of the this year. The Bulldogs have also been held scoreless four times this season.
Heading into the matchup, the Bulldogs have struggled in conference-play while Saginaw Valley has dominated and went into the game on a five game undefeated streak.
The Bulldogs fell behind early as the Cardinals scored in the eighth minute of play. The Cardinals kept tacking on goals, adding another goal in the 30th minute. Down 2-0 at half, the Bulldogs attempted to control the game from there on out.
However, the Cardinals scored for the third and final time in the 63rd minute which left the Bulldogs with a 3-0 loss.
With this loss, Ferris is now 7th in the conference heading into the final stretch of the season before the GLIAC tournament. For them to have success in this half of the season, Henson needs to get the most out of his players mentally and physically.
“We are giving them a mental health weekend to rejuvenate, revive and come back Monday ready to get back to work for the next games,” Henson said. “We have four home games in a row to wrap up the home series for us. We really want to find a way to come out of that with an above .500 record.”
The Bulldogs registered 14 shots, four of which the Cardinals goalkeeper was forced to save. However, as the scores suggests, the Bulldogs could not find a goal. Freshman midfielder Isabella Baron, who scored against Purdue Northwest last Friday, knows what needs to happen for the Bulldogs to score.
“We are good at building from the back,” Baron said. “But, we need to find more through balls and finish off of that.”
Last season Ferris State won 12 games, finished 4th in the conference, and made it to the National semi-finals. They came into this season losing 5 seniors on an already young team but returned three out of their five All-Conference selections. This season they have three wins and are running out of time to turn it around with seven regular season games left. Still, senior midfielder Brinley Bell is confident they will turn it around.
“It’s been tough to keep a positive mindset but this stuff happens and we just have to keep pushing,” Bell said. “We’re still trying to figure it out as a team because we’re young but it is only a matter of time before we figure ourselves out”.
They have a perfect opportunity to change the course of their season as they play three of the bottom four teams in the conference over the next three games. That then brings them to the toughest part of the schedule where they face the top four teams to round out their regular season play.
The Bulldogs will start their four game streak of home games this weekend when they play the Purdue-Northwest Pride on Friday, Oct. 13 at 1 p.m. then face the Wisconsin-Parkside Rangers on Sunday, Oct. 15 at 1 p.m.