While many would have said the women’s soccer  team did not have much of a chance going into its rivalry match up against the Ole Miss Rebels, the Bulldogs proved many doubters wrong and put on a solid display against one of the best teams in all of the SEC Friday night.
The match finished with the final score 1-0, with the only goal coming off of a Bulldog miscue just 50 seconds into the game. From there on out, MSU responded to the early adversity well, as the Dogs dominated large portions of the match going forward and almost equalized the score numerous times. 
Head Coach Aaron Gordon said he believes that this game will prove to be a huge motivating factor going forward with the rest of their season in SEC play. 
“I think our team was great. We were as good as we could be tonight, and that’s good enough for me.  If we’re as good as we can be every night, we’re going to make some changes,” he said. “Losing sucks, but it tastes a lot better when you know you gave a good effort.”
The game started off in nightmarish fashion for   MSU, as just less than a minute into the contest, Darbi Filliben was caught napping by opposing striker Addie Forbus. Forbus picked off Filliben’s pass that was intended for MSU keeper Tanya De Souza. From there, Forbus was able to slot the ball right past the Bulldog keeper to open the scoring for the Rebels.  Immediately following the error, the entire Bulldog squad huddled up on its side of the field in a circle and calmed each other down. This moment may have proven to be vastly important, as MSU spent the next 10 minutes controlling both the tempo and direction of the game.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, senior forward Shannen Jainudeen went down injured on one of those two attempts in the 25th minute. She laid on the pitch for a while holding her knee after a collision, but was able to walk off under her own power. Gordon described Jainudeen’s injury after the game as something that will be needed to be monitored going forward in the next week.
“The only disappointing thing was Shannen Jainudeen took a knock to her knee. I hope it’s not serious,” he said. “I think it was just a bad knee to knee contusion, and certainly we could have used her, just in her strength and her power in holding the ball, because we kind of got disconnected without her out there.”
The second half carried on about the same pace as the first, but Ole Miss stepped up its game and started to determine the flow of the match. Forbus would have scored her second of the match if not for De Souza, who was able to take in the hard strike on the 60th minute of action.  This was immediately followed by Ole Miss’s Sara Coleman getting free on the right side of the defense and having a shot that was just inches from finding the bottom left corner of the net. 
The Rebels continued to crank up the pressure on the Bulldogs, when their best chance of the second half presented itself in the 65th minute of play. Jessica Hiskey of the Rebels was able to find some space in the box on a corner attempt and headed the ball directly toward the upper right-hand corner of the Mississippi State goal.  However, De Souza again was able to make the acrobatic diving save to steer the ball away from her goal. De Souza, who has worked herself into the starting lineup, made Gordon’s selection of her goaltending look like the right one. She finished with four total saves, and overall she took the task of facing some of the best strikers in the entire SEC. 
In the 87th minute MSU had its best chance to tie the game through the play of Payton Gruenewald.  She beat two defenders in the midfield, allowing her the space to have a crack at the Ole Miss goal. The shot fizzed just to the right of the post to the dismay of the Bulldog supporters in the stands, who thought it was going in. 
Freshman right back Kayleigh Henry said she thought the performance was their best of the season, and she in particular praised the work done of the part of the defense.
“I think we were good in the air. There was a couple of times they got in behind us because we were a little out of shape, but we kept it together. We talked a lot tonight. There was a ton of communication, and we had good headers out of the back,” Henry said. 
While Ole Miss may have won the match, Bulldog captain Jordan echoed the sentiments of her head coach.   
“For starting the SEC season and for Ole Miss having a five-year start in where their program is compared to us being roughly in our second, that was a really great game.” she said.  
Moving forward, the Bulldogs travel to Lexington Friday to take on the Kentucky Wildcats.