Commodores Fall to No. 25 Florida

Commodores Fall to No. 25 Florida

10/9/2005

Gainesville, Fla. — The Vanderbilt women’s soccer team knew going into today’s match against No. 25 Florida that it would be one of their toughest of the season. The Gators’ (9-3-1, 4-1-1 SEC) lived up to that expectation — and their rankings which is as high as 14 in some polls — as they displayed an aggressive and talented attack that led to a 3-0 Florida victory. The three goals equal the number that the No. 18 Commodores (12-2-0, 5-1-0 SEC) allowed in their 13 previous games this season.

“We got beat by a better team,” said head coach Ronnie Coveleskie Hill. “Florida outplayed us. We are a much better team than we showed today, but the credit goes to Florida, they scored some great goals, they got into a great rhythm and they stayed with it.”

Junior goalkeeper Tyler Griffin (Charlotte, N.C.) entered the game only one minute shy of her own school record of 515 consecutive scoreless minutes. She broke that record, but in the 37^th minute she made a save on a shot by Florida’s Melanie Booth but could not hang onto the ball and Booth cleaned up her own rebound for a goal. Griffin’s streak ended at a new school record of 549:35, nearly 100 minutes more than Christy Barringer’s old record of 450. Griffin also recorded four saves in the game.

“We are thrilled that Tyler was able to have the season she’s had,” Hill said. “I said it earlier this season that I thought she’d be capable of breaking her own record and she did.

“I think this game and how we react to it is really important. Tyler’s still a very good leader, and she’s still a very good goalkeeper. We take this as a team loss today.”

Griffin allowed the second goal only a couple minutes into the second half at 47:05 when Daniela Sanchez headed the ball in off a corner kick. Florida scored once more when Megan Kerns kicked the ball into the corner of the net past Griffin. Florida out-shot Vanderbilt 10-6, only the second time the Commodores have been out-shot this year. The only other game was also the only other loss, a 2-1 defeat at Colorado to open the season when the Buffaloes fired 11 shots to VU’s nine.

“Florida changed their system of play for today’s game — they went into a 3-4-3, which threw us off a little bit,” Hill said. “I don’t think adjusted very well to it. And they just played a great soccer game.”

The loss also ends a 12-game winning streak for the Commodores, the longest in school history. At 5-1 in the conference, the team is still in second place behind Tennessee (8-4-1, 6-0 SEC), who stayed undefeated in conference play with a 2-0 win at LSU.

They will have a chance to tie for first place in the SEC East when the No. 23 Lady Vols come to Nashville for a 7 p.m. game Friday. That game, part of Vanderbilt’s Homecoming weekend, is also “Break The Attendance Night” at the Vanderbilt Soccer Complex. The first 500 fans will receive gold shakers, while the first 150 will also receive T-shirts.

“I think right now we’re going to lick our wounds a little bit,” Hill said. “But we’ll wake up tomorrow and we’ll start to focus on Tennessee coming to our house on Friday. I believe our girls are going to stand up to the challenge. They’ll learn a lot of valuable lessons from this loss today, but they will come back determined and ready to work hard.”