Georgia soccer, coming off of an SEC Championship victory, had a lot of promise and momentum coming into its first game of the NCAA tournament.
However, one question for the Bulldogs was if the team could put enough shots on goal to find success. The offense only had seven shots in their win over Arkansas versus the Razorbacks’ 18. Against Liberty though, the Georgia offense went on the attack.
Georgia took 29 shots and 11 on goal. Croix Bethune and Summer Denigan led the way with five shots each, while Hannah White’s goal in the 24th minute gave Georgia a 1-0 lead. However, the Bulldogs had 21 straight shots before one even went in.
With Georgia’s amount of shots, you’d expect more than just two goals to go through. However, Georgia’s shots just couldn’t find its target, as many sailed out. Both Nicole Vernis and Tori Penn had one-on-one chances with Liberty goalkeeper Ainsley Leja, but couldn’t punch it in.
“The keeper made quite a few good saves, so I have to give them some credit,” head coach Keidane McAlpine said. “I gotta give them credit of compacting spaces. I didn’t think in part of the we game we opened them up enough, we didn’t use our width to draw open more lanes. Both of the goals we scored we actually opened them and we were able to slide in those half spaces. We’ve got to be more clinical — to be fair, we’ve done that well over the last three games — we didn’t do it well in this game and part of it’s because they played a lot of man.”
Bethune, who had the assist on White’s goal, had several shots that just nearly went in, but Leja made several saves to keep the Bulldogs off the board, including an athletic diving shot. Despite the rough stretch, there was still optimism.
“It’s not like we weren’t creating opportunities,” White said. “I think it’s worse when there are no shots on goal obviously. So 29 shots, yeah it sounds like a lot, but I’ve taken 29, 40, 50 shots too. I think at the end of the day, it helps us move forward and when games get hard and we won’t have as many opportunities, but when we do have smaller or lesser chances, I think that’s when we’ll be able to capitalize.”
Liberty’s offense looked almost akin to Georgia’s in this game. The Eagles had only four shots, all on goal, and they managed to get one in.
“I thought they were really solid,” McAlpine said. “They’re not an offense that is a soft offense by any stretch of imagination. They’re used to playing in that way, they’re used to getting to the goal and then finding ways to finish and the finish was actually untraditional, which I thought it shows how good they were.”
Georgia’s offense did allow the team to own the time of possession and kept the pressure on Liberty, but ultimately the team will need to make more shots as the competition only gets tougher from here. However, the message going forward remains the same.
“Keep shooting,” Bethune said.
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