67th Minute Dagger foils Mizzou Soccer’s comeback bid versus Auburn

Mizzou Tiger Soccer picked up their first SEC loss of the season yesterday after a hard-fought win against the Florida Gators last Friday, at the hands of the Auburn Tigers.

Auburn came off a season-opening loss to Mississippi State, and it was pretty obvious coming into this game that the taste of that loss hadn’t completely washed out yet.

The oddly-colored Tigers struck first with an 11th minute goal that took an odd bounce off a free kick and snuck into the near-side corner of the goal. There was a lot of traffic in front of the net which made it hard for Bella Hollenbach in the Mizzou goal to see the ball, which is why the ball went in despite its low speed heading towards the net.

The first half was all about Auburn and their stout defense combined with some top tier offensive play from distance from the Auburn forwards. In the 33rd minute, Sydney Richards blasted in a shot in the top right corner from right outside of the box to give Auburn a commanding 2-0 lead heading into the halftime break.

At halftime the stats certainly showed the story the scoreboard did, as Missouri had only registered one shot in the entirety of the first half, a season low.

If Missouri were to start registering shots, they would have to get those shots past Auburn keeper Maddie Prohaska, who gave the black and gold Tigers plenty of fits last season when these two teams met on the field.

To begin the second half it looked like whatever Missouri coach Stefanie Golan told her team worked, as in the 49th minute Kylee Simmons added to her SEC-leading goal tally and cut the Auburn lead in half with plenty of time for Missouri to engineer a comeback.

The comeback gods answered Missouri’s prayers as just 11 minutes later, Leah Selm slotted a ball into the bottom right corner, sending the good Tigers’ bench into a frenzy as Missouri now had 30 minutes to potentially win this game and get a 2-0-0 start in SEC Play.

However, seven minutes later disaster struck for the Tigers as Richards got her second goal of the match on a weird looking shot that somehow found its way behind Hollenbach. Unfortunately, that goal would stand as the winner for the duration of the match.

What plagued the Tigers in this match was a clear lack of shot generation, as they registered a season-low four shots total in the game, and while two of them found their way into the net, they typically have generated high shot volumes all season.

The loss moved the Tigers to 5-2-2 on the season and a 1-1-0 record in the SEC.

Final Statlines: Auburn had 6 shots while Missouri had 4, Missouri had 3 corner kicks to Auburn’s 1.

UP NEXT: Missouri takes on No. 22 Georgia at home on Sunday, September 24th at 6PM CST