On Sunday afternoon, the Oregon Ducks Women’s soccer team hosted the California Golden Bears in a non-conference match. The Ducks came into this game after beating Pac-12 rival Stanford for the first time in program history, but surrender defeat for the first time this season after Cal’s Emma Westin scored the only goal in the game in the 71st minute.
Junior Forward Jordan Wormdhahl spoke after the game about the team’s performance, “I think ultimately like its less what they did and more how we responded – we forced somethings that I don’t think we needed to force, and maybe got pulled away from what we tried to do originally – but ultimately, we just had to be a cohesive unit and play a little bit better.”
Early on in the first half, both teams played with good pace on the ball, pushing back and forth. At the end of the first half, the Bears and Ducks both had seven shots and two corner attempts a piece.
However, in the second half, the 14th-ranked Cal Bears slowed down the Ducks attack to just one shot attempt.
“[We] Didn’t really use our forwards as high up the field as we should, at times we were jamming the ball down one side of the field, not getting up the other side, we just couldn’t release the players into space. In the first half we were pretty effective at that – for sure we didn’t get our 7s,11s, and our 9s involved,” said head coach Graeme Abel after the match.
In addition to the loss, the Ducks lost LB Chai Cortez in the first 20 minutes of the match to injury. The good news for the Ducks is that 18 players touched the pitch on Sunday, gaining valuable time and experience.
The Ducks will be in Los Angeles next weekend to face off against the UCLA Bruins on Friday, March 5th and the USC Trojans on Sunday, March 7th, looking to improve on their 2-1-1 record.
Graeme Abel Postgame
Jordan Wormdahl Postgame