OXFORD, Miss. – Vanderbilt saw its 16-game unbeaten streak come to an end on Thursday, falling on the road to Ole Miss, 1-0, at the Ole Miss Soccer Stadium.
The No. 7 Commodores (15-2-1, 8-1-1) lost their first conference game of the season on a rainy evening in Oxford.
“I can’t fault their effort and I thought we battled well and created enough chances to find a goal,” head coach Darren Ambrose said. “We’ll look at video and it’s a great opportunity to learn from a game like this before postseason. It’s humbling to dominate a game and still lose, and we are more of a team now than at any point in the season.”
In the 13th minute of the first half, the Dores gave up the game’s lone goal off a free kick from about 23 yards out that squeaked through the ball before skipping off of the turf into the bottom corner of the goal.
The Dores had plenty of opportunities to even the score on Thursday. They dominated the shots category with a 17-4 advantage. They also saw lots of good looks off set pieces with 12 corner kicks to the Rebels’ two. Peyton Cutshall almost tied the game up in the first half but her shot hit the post.
On a tough night, Madi Allen and Madison Elwell delivered positive performances. Elwell had her way on the left side of the field and sent cross after cross into the box to set up scoring chances.
Allen subbed into the game early in the second half and had three shots almost find the back of the net. Her first shot hit a Rebel defender right in front of the net for a team save and her second was saved by the goalkeeper. Her third shot hit right off the crossbar and almost evened the game up.
“I don’t want to make excuses. The field was bad for both teams. We handled it as well as we could have overall,” Ambrose said. “We haven’t seen conditions like that and while we adjusted pretty well it just made it difficult in the final third with the number of players Ole Miss defended with. They made it very hard on the night.”
The Dores next travel to the SEC Tournament in Orange Beach, Alabama. They locked up the No. 1 seed in the tournament and will have a first-round bye. Keep an eye on VUCommodores.com for complete seeding information.
“At the end of the day, streaks end and that’s not a bad thing for us going into postseason play,” Ambrose said. “It is disappointing. We all hate to lose, but it’s a great humbling and learning experience for us moving forward.”
