Hoping to gain momentum heading into a home match-up Sunday with No. 1-ranked Florida State, the women’s soccer team needed to avoid its first losing streak of the season Thursday afternoon against Miami.
State did just that as junior midfielder Jessica O’Rourke netted her team-leading seventh goal and 16th point of the season as the Pack won its ACC opener 1-0 over the Hurricanes at Method Road Soccer Stadium.
With the Pack’s sixth shutout in nine games, the team improved to 6-1-2 (1-0 ACC). The win was also State’s third consecutive shutout win over Miami, including a 1-0, double-overtime victory on the road last season.
Pack head coach Laura Kerrigan said the hard-fought victory over the Canes (6-2, 0-1 ACC) will help the team get over last weekend’s 3-1 loss to Virginia Commonwealth, State’s lone defeat this season.
“It’s important to get that VCU game out of our heads,” she said. “We came back, and the first 20 minutes [against Miami] we possessed [the ball] very well. It was something we tried to hammer into our team after last weekend.
“We talked about how we have to possess to create chances to move forward. The first 20 minutes we really put Miami on the defensive because we possessed, we found chances and we almost scored several times.”State had two shots clang off the crossbar and another clip the post early in the game as the Pack hammered 11 shots in the first half.
“We were really peppering the goal, and I thought that gave us a lot of confidence going into the second half,” Kerrigan said. “We got a great goal. It was a fantastic, world-class goal from Jess O’Rourke off a very well-placed free kick by Katie [Ruiz].”
Ruiz, a freshman forward, booted the free kick toward the goal, finding O’Rourke, who headed the ball into the upper-left corner of the net in the 56th minute. As Ruiz ran up the sideline, the referee called a foul on Miami, setting up the free kick.
“I just served it far-post and Jess finished it,” Ruiz said of her fourth assist of the season. “I saw Jessica go up for it, and I just said to myself, ‘Please, please let her get it.’ It was a really nice play.”
O’Rourke said her teammates executed the play to help the Pack take advantage of one of its many scoring opportunities on the afternoon.
“Everybody made their runs and was crashing the net,” she said. “It’s being disciplined — getting to the ball, making sure it’s a good service, finishing the opportunities you have. That’s been our biggest problem this year. We’ve got to capitalize on our opportunities.”
O’Rourke said the focus much of the week was on eliminating mistakes by playing a simpler game.
“We worked on playing simple in practice all week — playing the way we face, moving off the ball, keeping possession,” O’Rourke said. “We did well on that for a while, but then you could tell we started getting nervous and that’s when we coughed the ball up. But we focused and got it together.”
Kerrigan said she didn’t want the team to sit back and defend with the lead, but rather to keep attacking.
“We took it on the offensive again and almost punched in a second goal, but their keeper made a great save,” she said. “Toward the end of the game, we played smart tactically. We wanted to protect the lead and tried to fortify our defense.”
Ruiz said the win will help the Pack as it takes on the rest of a traditionally tough ACC schedule.
“[This win] was so important,” she said. “We had to win this game. It’s going to set the tone for the rest of our ACC games.”