ESU soccer coach Jim Schneiderhahn’s assessment of his team’s 5-1 loss on Thursday to Missouri Southern was that his team did not show up.
The Hornets picked a bad day to play hooky. The Lions entered Thursday’s match with an identical record to the Hornets (3-6), and the Lions, like the Hornets, had only one league win.
“We should have won,” Schneiderhahn said. “We can’t think of ourselves as a team that is just going in there to hang in there. We have to think of ourselves as winners, and then we need to play like it.”
The Hornets started the season with energy and hope, winning their first two games after a winless 2007. But lately it’s feeling a whole lot like 2007. The Hornets have dropped four straight and seven of their last eight.
ESU had several chances early to take score the first goal, but 21 minutes into the game, MSSU’s Nikki Llewellyn had scored two goals and ESU had an absentee offense.
“I thought that we did some good things early and I thought that we created some things and then it was like we stopped working,” Schneiderhahn said. “I don’t care what you do in any line of work, if you stop working, you’re not going to be successful.”
Brianna McKenzie added another goal before halftime to give the Lions a 3-0 lead, and Schneiderhahn’s frustration was shown by his silence after halftime.
The ESU coach stood yards away from his players at the end of the bench most of the second half. He didn’t need to lecture his players, because most them were visibly upset with themselves and he also has a week before the Hornets next game.
This upcoming week could be the deciding factor in whether the Hornets regain their early-season energy or let the losing continue.
“We’re in the midterm and maybe kids are getting tired,” Schneiderhahn said. “It’s easy to get lazy. The newness of the beginning of the season has worn off. ... We’re in kind of the dog days of fall and that is all about mentality. It’s deciding to play, deciding to play to the best of our ability.”
Emporia State is at its best when the offense is aggressive and for most of the game against Missouri Southern, the Hornets did not attack. The Hornets did not score their goal until just over 77 minutes in — trailing 5-0 — when Alicia Smith kicked in an Alison Germany cross. It was Smith’s team-leading third goal of the season and Germany’s team-leading third assist.
To make a bad game even worse, Lauren Cathey, one of ESU’s top players, sprained her left ankle midway through the second half when she was knocked to the ground after trying to save a ball from going out of bounds.
Cathey will have a week to recover before No. 12 Nebraska-Omaha visits next Thursday.
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