UConn women’s soccer shutout at home

Despite outshooting their opponent 20-15 in game, including 11-3 in the first half, the UConn Huskies women’s soccer team fell to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, 4-0, on Sunday afternoon in front of nearly 1,500 people at a cloudy Joseph J. Marrone Stadium.

“The better team did not win today,” said UConn head coach Len Tsantiris. “They had three goals given to them. I don’t know how it happened, but it was too easy.”
UConn (7-5-1, 3-3) peppered the net often in the first half, but they were unable to score. The best chance for the Huskies came in the 22nd minute, when freshman forward Andrea Plucenik played a through ball to senior striker Danielle Schulmann, inside the 18-yard box. Schulmann, who leads the Big East in goals scored, curled the ball around the charging Notre Dame goalkeeper, but the far post kept the ball out. The ball sat teasingly inside the six-yard box, waiting for someone to knock it home. Schulmann, however, didn’t make good contact with it on her follow-up attempt and the ball flew out of bounds.

UConn had many chances similar to this throughout the course of the game.

“We didn’t take the shots that were there and at times, we took shots and we missed,” Tsantiris said. “We had six or seven opportunities that we just didn’t take the shot and it was right there. We get something out of that and we change the whole game. We get two goals and the game is ours.”
Notre Dame (9-3-1, 5-0) played in its defensive half for a majority of the first half, but they capitalized on their only good opportunity. With just two minutes remaining in the half, the Fighting Irish drew a foul from about 25 yards from the net. Lauren Bohaboy was able to beat UConn goalkeeper Leigh-Ann Jaggon with a free kick that hit the crossbar and dropped into the net to put the Irish up, 1-0.

The Irish’s second goal came in the 56th minute. A miscommunication between UConn defenders Gianna Roma and Gabrielle Charno gave Notre Dame forward Cari Roccaro the ball inside the six-yard box. Roccaro beat Jaggon far post to double the Irish’s lead.

Notre Dame tacked on two insurance goals later in the half. The third goal came when Irish forward Crystal Thomas mishit a ball off of her knee, which chipped Jaggon. The final goal of the match came in the 83rd minute on a crisp cross from Karin Simonian, who found Anna Gilbertson for her third goal of the season.

Even though the Huskies lost by a whopping four goals, Tsantiris said that, in his 32-year tenure with UConn, his team has never dominated the Irish the way they did on Sunday.

“I mean, legit, they had one goal that I would say that they created,” Tsantiris said. “Every other one was either a mistake by our backs, a miskick or on the keeper. Things that could’ve gone in a different way, but they didn’t.

“That’s the game we play. Sometimes, when it rains it pours.”
The Huskies will take on the USF Bulls in their next game, Friday at Marrone Stadium.