Only four games into conference play, untimely injuries are plaguing the Mississippi State soccer team. With LSU and Texas A&M looming in the near future, the girls are desperately striving to recover from their injuries.
The Dogs suffered a 4-2 defeat Friday against Vanderbilt and a 6-0 loss Sunday versus the No. 23 Tennessee Lady Volunteers.
Junior forward Elisabeth Sullivan scored both goals in Friday’s game, improving her team lead to seven goals. Sullivan’s first goal came on an impressive breakaway by the Memphis native, weaving in and out of the defense and firing the ball past the goalie. With the two goals, she moved to fifth on the all-time MSU scoring list.
Sullivan said her two goals were a team effort all the way around.
“My teammates are always there to encourage and help me,” Sullivan said. “It was definitely a group effort.”
Sunday’s game against Tennessee was tough for State from the start. The Lady Vols scored less than a minute into the game and held that lead throughout the entire game.
An already struggling MSU team saw things quickly go from bad to worse with 26:14 left in the first half as senior goalie Skylar Rosson was hit with a red card, forcing her out of the game. This forced State to play one player down the rest of the game.
Replacement goalie C.J. Winshape came in and stopped a penalty kick, but coming into an SEC game with an already limited defense in front of her was no easy task for the sophomore.
Bulldog senior Lauren Morgan played in her first SEC game after recovering from an ankle injury but was still bothered by the injury in her limited minutes of play. Sophomore defender Shannen Jainudeen missed the weekend due to a concussion. Jainudeen’s absence played a key role in the struggling Bulldog defense over the weekend.
Senior midfielder Zehra Syed, who earned her first start of the season Sunday, said even though it is tough coming in and playing in place of players of that magnitude such as Rosson, Jainudeen and Morgan, the team could all learn from the unfortunate situation.
“We just went a man down early and had to work through that, but it’s also a learning experience to play through adversity like that, and it will teach us to push through,” Syed said.
The Bulldogs tried numerous formation shifts and different lineups to get something going offensively, but the deficit was too much to overcome.
Head coach Neil MacDonald said his main goal was for the team to play good defense after Rosson was forced out of the game, but trying to defend the way the defense had been and then moving to an aggressive system of play offensively just did not work in MSU’s favor.
“We had to switch the system, and I thought at times we did a decent job at switching it,” MacDonald said. “But when you’re down a player, it becomes very difficult to transition to attack.”
With more time and injured players recovering throughout the week, the Bulldogs can get back to the style of play that earned the team an undefeated record prior to SEC play.
Sullivan said even though this stretch has been and will be tough, everyone has to step up.
“You have to keep your head up and keep going,” Sullivan said. “With adversity like that, everyone on the team must be a leader.”