Going into its last two games of the season, the Massachusetts women’s soccer team needed a pair of wins in order to earn a comfortable place in the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
After this weekend, such a comfortable place seems to be out of reach for UMass.
The Minutewomen were forced to settle for a 0-0 tie after two overtime periods at Richmond on Sunday.
UMass (6-9-3, 2-4-2 A-10) only gains one point toward the conference standings with the tie. And now their playoff chances appear to lie in the hands of their season finale at home against St. Bonaventure on Saturday.
“I think if we win our next game against St. Bonaventure, we will come in the seventh or eighth seed in the A-10,” UMass coach Ed Matz said. “A few teams have to play each other, and [the playoff seed] is about all you can ask for.”
As usual, the defense came up big for the Minutewomen, keeping the Spiders (5-8-3, 2-3-1 A-10) scoreless through 110 minutes of play. Richmond couldn’t seem to get into an offensive rhythm as it was held to just 17 shots in the game and only one in the extended time periods.
The UMass offense, however, showed the same struggles with scoring that it has all season, failing to muster up a goal to strengthen the team’s pursuit of an A-10 postseason run. Throughout the 110 minutes allotted, UMass couldn’t convert on any of its 18 total shots or on any of its seven corner kick opportunities. Even with the struggles the offense had in this game, Matz thought his team put in a good effort.
“We worked hard offensively,” Matz said. “[We] created some opportunities and it’s just a group of players working hard offensively, but it again it’s a bit of a struggle.”
The Richmond game marks the fifth time the Minutewomen have been shut out, and the 11th time they have been held under two goals.
“We don’t have any true, natural goalscorers,” Matz said. “Our opportunities have to come off of hard work. Like I said, we worked hard, but we just didn’t finish.”
Although the team doesn’t have any “true goalscorers,” the team leader in goals, senior forward Brittany Moore, has been red-hot lately. Moore has scored her team’s last five goals, increasing her season total to eight.
However, neither Moore or second-leading scorer Alyssa D’Arcy could find a groove in the game against the Spiders as they both combined for just one shot between the two of them.
Despite Moore’s hot streak and D’Arcy’s previous contributions on offense, Matz didn’t think that it was a huge impact on the result of the game.
“They both work hard, and tried to create some opportunities, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” said Matz
Tom Mulherin can be reached at [email protected].
