Home openers produce win and loss
Greg Burghardt
Soccer freshman Anne Decker’s shutout streak ended at 191 minutes when Kent State opened the scoring in a 1-0 win Sunday.
The loss followed Decker’s first career shutout against Buffalo Friday. CMU won that game 3-0.
The Golden Flashes had numerous scoring chances Sunday but did not convert until the 71st minute on a goal by Uma Ramadorai. KSU controlled the play throughout, outshooting Central 10-3.
“Today was a prototypical away win,” said Kent State coach Rob Marinaro. “You do whatever it takes to win on the road and that is what we did.”
Decker played another strong game in net for the Chippewas, making two saves. However, CMU head coach Mark Salisbury was disappointed with the overall play of the team.
“We quit, we didn’t play hard,” he said. “As soon as things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, people quit.”
Five of the 11 Chippewas starters were freshmen, and appeared tentative at times.
“As a group, the freshmen didn’t show up today,” Salisbury said.
Also absent from the stat sheet was sophomore leading scorer Stacy Downing. She leads the team with three goals, but was shadowed all game by KSU defenders.
“When she comes in as the highest goal scorer, we had to keep an eye on her,” Marinaro said. “We were for certain aware of where she was all the time.”
The loss drops CMU to 2-3-2 overall and 1-2-1 in the MAC. KSU improves to a conference-leading 4-0-0.
Decker got her first win and tied a team record with 12 saves Friday. It was the team’s first shutout in two years.
“There is nothing better than a shutout as a goalie,” Decker said. “This win was very important, it reaally boosted our confidence.”
Downing posted her third three-point game of the season, including a goal 17 seconds in. The goal was the fastest in team history. She also assisted on Rachel Snyder’s goal, which made the score 2-0.
“(Downing is) playing with a lot of confidence,” Salisbury said. “She has worked really hard from a year ago until now to be a better soccer player.”
Senior defender Katie Conway missed both games this weekend. She suffered a knee injury and will be sidelined at least two weeks.
“It’s an important loss. She is a very talented player and a very good leader on our team,” Salisbury said. “She has a lot of intangibles that really help our team be better.”
The Chippewas play Friday at Ball State to attempt to bring their conference record to .500.
