Women’s soccer set for weekend of games

Junior+Kathleen+MacKinnon+plays+keep+away+with+Bowling+Green+States+Morgan+Abbitt+during+the+Panthers+3-2+loss+on+Sept.+11+at+Lakeside+Field.

Jason Howell

Junior Kathleen MacKinnon plays keep away with Bowling Green State’s Morgan Abbitt during the Panthers’ 3-2 loss on Sept. 11 at Lakeside Field.

Sean Hastings, Assistant Sports Editor

The Eastern women’s soccer team will continue Ohio Valley Conference play this weekend when they take on Belmont on Friday and Jacksonville State on Sunday.

The Panthers lost their first two OVC games, and coach Jason Cherry said it was a good reminder to the older players of what OVC play is all about and the newcomers to realize what it is about.

Eastern will travel to Belmont, and will host Jacksonville State at Lakeside Field Sunday.

Belmont is also 0-2 in conference play and Jacksonville State is 1-1 to start OVC play.

Cherry wants the team to get back to pressing the way he knows the team can in these two games this weekend.

He added that he wants the Panthers to try and go around the defenders and set up corner kicks, which has helped get the Panthers a few goals in previous games.

“Corner kicks are so huge,” Cherry said. “We need to generate more corner kicks.”

The Panthers have been dealing with some injuries the past couple weeks which has played a part in not getting as many wins as they would like.

Senior Molly Hawkins has been hurt for the past three weeks and was held scoreless last weekend. Cherry has been keeping it easy on her in practice to make sure that she gets back to full strength.

Lately, the Panthers have been giving up a lot of shots, but they have been long shots because teams are trying to get around freshman goalkeeper Maddie Lyon.

Although teams take long shots on the Panthers, Cherry would like his team to get quality shots.

“If we can take one shot and win 1-0, I’ll be a happy man. I’d rather play quality soccer.” Cherry said.

The Panthers have had games where they don’t statistically record a lot of shots, but they did take quality shots that just didn’t happen to go in.

Cherry added that sometimes you do have to take the long shot to keep the goalie on her toes and shooting long kind of opens up some space for later in the game because teams don’t know what is going to happen.

Eastern knows that if they stick to their style of game, things will start to go their way because the score always doesn’t give the full picture.

Cherry said that there has been times where the Panthers control the ball most of the game, they aren’t just getting the goals and the wins that they would like.

Right now the Panthers aren’t looking at the stats and only care about the final score and about where they can improve.

The game against Belmont is scheduled to start 4 p.m. Friday and the game against Jacksonville State will start at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

 

Sean Hastings can be reached 581-2812 or [email protected]