The Carleton Ravens women’s soccer team lost a closely contested match to the UOIT Ridgebacks 1-0 in their fourth game of the season on Sept. 12.
On one of the wettest days of the year, the Ravens took the field hoping to come out strong. MNP Park was drenched all day, with heavy showers persisting throughout the entire match. Unable to score in their previous two games, the Ravens were looking to change that up Saturday.
Both teams played very defensively, with each team having only one shot on goal during the first half. The Ravens and Ridgebacks both made some nice pushes, but the ball stayed in the neutral zone for the majority of the game.
“We did have chances going forward, but we weren’t consistent enough,” head coach Raz El-Asmar said after the game.
The Ravens were struck with some bad news with the minutes remaining in the first half, when second year forward Emily Copeland-Dinan hurt her leg.
The second half started out very much like the first, with neither team able to get definitive control of the match.
Elizabeth McDougall had what may have been the play of the game five minutes into the second half, with a diving save off of a shot by a Ridgebacks forward.
With just over ten and a half minutes remaining, Tyra Gordon, a second-year forward for UOIT, netted her first goal of the season off a rebound.
“That goal, it was just one of those things. One touch, we made a mistake,” El-Asmar said.
With little time to make a comeback, the Ravens pushed for a goal as the clock wound down, but ultimately came up short.
“Defensively we did very well throughout the game. We were disciplined and we were winning the ball in the neutral zone” El-Asmar said. “We gotta start scoring goals. We haven’t scored goals in three games now . . . We’re just not creating enough chances.”
Centreback Melat Cherent, a second-year law student at Carleton, was instrumental to the team’s success on defence. She also singlehandedly brought up the ball the length of the field in the last three minutes in a last-ditch effort to tie up the game.
“I think every individual person on this team put forth an amazing effort and it just didn’t materialize,” Cherent said.
“Defensively, I think we were fantastic . . . Everybody did what they were asked . . . Obviously it would have been better if we won.”
The Ravens broke their dry spell on Sunday with a 6-1 win over the Trent Excalibur. The Ravens will play again against the Laurentian Voyageurs on Sept. 19 in Sudbury.
