Last weekend, Southeastern achieved its first win of the season against Southern on senior night, 2-0.
Before the game, the six seniors on the team were honored with a tribute: forward Emma Ramsey, midfielder Rylee Franklin, midfielder Maggie Denison, midfielder Eve Frousiakis, midfielder Sam Ostrowski, and midfielder Mia Martin.
On the pitch, both teams struggled to get in sync in the first half. The Lady Lions came out aggressively and put pressure on the Lady Jaguars and held them to no goals through the first half.
Throughout the beginning of the season, SLU faced problems slowing down their opponents in the first half and strived for a win.
After the team suffered a tough loss to Jackson State in the season home opener and tied the last two games on the road, Southeastern came out in the second half on the run and immediately forced the ball to the other side of the pitch.
Around the 50-minute mark, sophomore defender Ella Quinlan scored the first goal of the night with an assist from sophomore midfielder Charlotte Lewis.
“This was a giant turning point for our team, after the last game, we came up with an entirely new strategy and to see us practice it so then executing the way it was meant to run, helped us get the win,” Quinlan said about the team’s new game plan.
Southern drove the ball towards the Lady Lions’ goal a few times to score, but the defense kept them from scoring with some assistance from the junior goalie, Kendall Curran.
Then SLU maneuvered the ball down the pitch to apply more pressure on the Lady Jaguars’ defense and tire them out.
After they put the ball back into play off a corner kick near Southern’s goal, Emma Ramsey scored the second goal with an assist from her teammate Lainey Connell.
During the post-game, Ramsey described the team’s performance and what it took to win their first match of the season.
“Winning this game felt amazing since we’ve been working our tails off every day, getting closer as a team, working as a unit, and it feels nice that the hard work is paying off,” Ramsey said
In the end, the team was ecstatic for the win, and Head Coach Nathan Gillespie congratulated them. He expressed that during practice, the team watched film and helped them tweak their formations.
“We’re happy with our performance tonight. We highlighted our weaknesses on film, where we possessed the ball and were vulnerable, then spent all week working on a different tactic to create a different attacking structure to help make us more defensive and revert it to another shape so we can kill the game while we limit chances against us.”
Ramsey and Quinlan shared that the team never moped about the tough start of the season and said they always stay positive while working hard.
“Right when you lose, it’s an awful feeling, but there was no point we moped during practice, our team is always at it the next day,” Ramsey said before Quinlan added, “If anything, it helped us place that chip on our shoulder and show that we’re tired of losing and gave us the motivation to win.”
Next game, Southeastern will travel to UTRGV and start conference play on Sept. 21 at 1 p.m., following the cancellation of the match versus Mississippi Valley State.
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