North Alabama Powers Past Salukis, 3-1

Sunday, August 25

Carbondale, Ill.

1 PM

Southern Illinois University

1-1-0, 0-0-0

North Alabama

1-1-0, 0-0-0

North Ala.

Southern Ill.

08/25/2019 | 3:37:00 | Women's Soccer

Box Score

By: Brandon Lindholm, SIUSalukis.com

CARBONDALE, Ill. – In the second leg of a five-game homestand, the Southern Illinois Salukis (1-1 overall) fell to the North Alabama Lions (1-1) by a score of 3-1.

The Lions went on the offensive early, scoring their first goal in the 19^th minute by way of Shelby Wall, her first of the season. The remainder of the first half stayed quiet as the Salukis were trying to get into an offensive rhythm.

Coming out of the break, UNA scored again in the 46^th minute by way of Haley Yarber and again nearly two minute later when Madeline Guillen found the back of the net to make it 3-0.

Southern Illinois' Kathryn Creedon scored her first goal as a Saluki in the 88^th minute. SIU nearly scored another goal in the 89^th minute but failed to find the back of the net for a second time before time expired.

SIU was outshot by UNA 9-8 but managed to get an efficient four shots on goal. Freshmen Kaitlin DuCharme and Marissa Basi shared the team lead in shots with Creedon at two apiece.

Head coach Grant Williams' postgame comments

On his overall thoughts from today's game:
I felt that for a short turnaround, from a Friday to a Sunday, that our effort was good for the full 90 minutes. Their goalkeeper came up with a great save late in the first half. I felt good with where we were going into halftime. Set pieces is not an area that we've spent a lot of time working on. We don't spend a lot of time scouting the other opponents and I know that will be something that we do more of. We didn't do a good job of matching up our best header against their best header. Those first five minutes and last five minutes of each half, those five minutes after goals are scored are critical and we may not just have been switched on because we gave up back-to-back. We haven't really been in that situation before. I think it's just a learning opportunity to see how quickly the game can change and how you can't give good teams lots of opportunities and that kind of just put us behind the eight ball. I'm obviously very proud regardless of the circumstance. We continue to try and do things and play the right way. We wound up getting a consolation goal late so there's more positives than negatives. Certainly, some lessons to be learned today.

On the quick turnaround up ahead:
A lot of it is going to rely on the players to do the right things and make the right choices with their sleep, their nutrition and getting into the training room to get treatment. Everybody played today and I think getting lots of people minutes over the course of the two games this weekend is going to help us with how we're going to spread those minutes around and manage workloads. Overall, that's part of playing college soccer. Games come fast and furious. Nobody is going to feel sorry for us if we're tired on gameday.

On the impact of going through the team's first win and first loss:
For me, it's more about the totality of the 90 minutes. I felt that there were more positives than negatives. We'll be judged at the end of the year by that because it affects recruiting and mentality with people being excited from fans to players. I'm probably more positive about us dropping a couple of goals, being down three to zero and whether we're still trying to compete and score. Until the final whistle blows, you can't give up.

Up Next: The Salukis will return to action on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. when they welcome in NCAA DIII opponent Rose-Hulman. Tickets are available to purchase at SIUSalukis.com or by calling 1-877-SALUKIS