A true battle of two rivals. A game that was physical, draining and very competitive but after both teams played yesterday perhaps not the best soccer contest.
I'm not sure either team deserved to win or lose so a tie seems like the fairest outcome. Both programs are very familiar with each other and that probably tends to cancel out any tactical advantage or surprise and it comes down to who can execute or capitalize on a mistake.
I think South probably had the better of the first half, we struggled at times to connect the way we wanted and they pinned us in our end a little, at half time we made some adjustments but they came out and scored on a counter attack and then that seemed to force us to raise our level. We scored off a free kick when the ball was redirected to Sara Tyler and she was able to head back across goal to tie the game up. After that I thought we had the momentum, we looked dangerous but never managed to create a real scoring chance , credit to South for the way they defended us in those periods.
Once it got to OT I think both teams were exhausted and it was a matter of just trying to connect one final pass or pounce on something and neither team could really do it. Both teams his the crossbar but aside from that there were only 1-2 chances at most.
We played 90 mins yesterday in an OT loss to CB West and another 100 mins today, a lot of credit to our back line, Mairin Coghlan, Amber Yuan, Audrey Thomson, Kinsley Smith and especially Tavi Copestick for the way they have defended and completed in the last 2 games. That defensive unit is coming together well after some early season injuries and they showed today how good they can be. Our midfield was very industrious and we were really impressed with Isabel Diaz today on the outside. South are very effective down their left hand side and Isabel tracked runners, competed well and was a handful going forward.
We are 1/3 of the way into the season and while there are things we know we can do better I think we have seen a lot this week from our group in terms of effort and competitive play that we can use going forward.