Florida Season Ends with OT Loss

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Florida Soccer's Season Ends with 1-0 OT Loss to Oregon State in NCAA Second Round

The No. 3 regional seed University of Florida soccer team (16-6-2, 8-1-2 SEC) saw its season end in a 1-0 overtime loss to Oregon State (14-7-1, 4-5 Pac 10) in NCAA Championship Second Round action held Sunday at Ohio State’s Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium. The loss was the earliest exit for the Gators in four years, as Florida reached the round of 16 in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The exit was the earliest for the Gators in four years, as Florida reached the NCAA Round of 16 in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

The game-winning goal happened quickly as the first overtime period was winding down. The Gators turned the ball over in their defensive third. Oregon State’s Rachael Axon quickly brought the ball down to the middle of the Gator half. Her through ball found Melinda Ingalls in the box. Ingalls scored the game-winning goal from 16-yards for the Beavers first overtime win this season.

“We never seem comfortable today,” UF Head Coach Becky Burleigh said. “We didn’t play with rhythm. You have to credit Oregon State for disrupting our rhythm. We just didn’t create enough dangerous opportunities today.”

Many of Florida’s best opportunities to score didn’t result in a shot, as the Gators were often unable to make that decisive last pass. The best opportunity of the opening half came in the 34^th minute when sophomore Jazmyne Avant was played a ball down the sideline. She beat her defender to catch up with the ball and she played a centering ball from deep in the OSU half, but no Gators could get a foot on the ball before OSU goalkeeper Colleen Boyd gathered it up.

In the 57^th minute, McKenzie Barney received the ball from Lindsay Thompson in the middle of the box, but her shot was high over the crossbar. Just a couple of minutes later Erika Tymrak made a nice move at the top right corner of the box to shake her defender, allowing her to bring the ball down toward the endline. Her centering pass couldn’t find the foot of a Gator. She ran a replay of the play within the minute as she had the ball again at the right corner of the box. This centering pass came from almost the end line but Thompson couldn’t quite get square to take a shot at the far post corner.

Senior Angela Napolitano also had a couple of back-to-back opportunities for assists in the 61^st minute. She tried to send a diagonal ball from 20 yards to Thompson at the far post corner, but the ball was cleared out. Napolitano sent another cross into the box soon after, but the diving head of Tahnai Annis just missed it.

In the 87^th minute, Tymrak tapped the ball forward into the center of the box looking for Barney who was making a run, but the OSU goalkeeper gathered up the ball to end that threat.

The Beavers play Sunday kept the Gators from connecting passes, Thompson said.

“They were pretty disruptive in the middle of the field. They had a lot of midfielders and they were good at reading where we wanted to play the ball so it was hard for us to keep a string of passes together,” Thompson said. “That is usually our focus. Today we were probably too focused on trying to score a goal.”

Florida says farewell to its five-member senior class – Jessica Eicken, Lauren Hyde, Caitlin Howard, Angela Napolitano and Tricia Townsend – who finished their careers with a 66-21-11 four-year record. The majority of the team returns next season, as 22 of Florida’s 30 members are freshmen or sophomores. Florida is the only team ranked in the nation’s top 15 that all of its top five point scorers are underclassmen.

The sting of this loss will stay with the Gators for awhile, which is something goalkeeper Katie Fraine hopes the returners use as a motivator for the future.

“Everyone is really upset right now. Being such a youth-orientated team, I think it will be really good for us in the spring and come fall,” Fraine said. “So we need to make sure that the freshmen coming in and the rest of the team coming back realize that this is one loss and we will grow from it. We need to bring everything that we’ve learned from this year into next year.”

Oregon State will now face No. 2 regional seed Notre Dame (19-3-1, 10-0-1 BIG EAST) on Friday, Nov. 20 at 7:30 p.m. in South Bend, Ind. The Fighting Irish advanced with a 5-0 win over Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis in the opening round and a 6-1 win versus Central Michigan on Sunday.