On Sept. 8 of this year, the Oregon soccer team traveled to North Carolina and, in one of its closest games of the year, got edged by now-No. 11 Duke 1-0.
Funny how history repeats itself.
The Ducks missed another chance to topple a Top-25 team on Sunday as they lost 1-0 to No. 21 Florida State at Papé Field.
Florida State true freshman Emma Breland scored the lone goal, a chip shot eight minutes into the second half that floated over Oregon goalie Sarah Peters’ head. The goal was Breland’s seventh of the year, and was assisted by Summer Corum, another true freshman.
“Emma’s been scoring for us all year,” Florida State head coach Patrick Baker said. “She just got a little separation from her defender, and the shot wasn’t hard, but effective.”
Oregon had a tough time guarding Breland all afternoon. The Swedish midfielder took seven shots, many of which were legitimate chances. The rest of the Florida State team took 10 shots altogether.
Meanwhile, the Ducks took 14 shots as a team, led by Crystal David and Mary Cascio’s three attempts each. Oregon was stymied by Florida State’s defense all afternoon, but also failed to convert chances when they did appear.
The Ducks’ best chance at a score came 25 minutes into the match, when David led an attack downfield and dished the ball outside to a trailing midfielder. David received the ensuing cross pass, and her shot from 15 yards out went over the head of Florida State goalie Sarah Crawford, but bounced off the crossbar.
Junior forward Chalise Baysa felt that the Ducks should do a much better job of finishing their scoring chances.
“We work on shooting in practice,” Baysa said. “But we need to bring that from practice to the games.”
But the Ducks did win the possession game, using crisp passing and aggressiveness to keep the ball for much of the first half.
“They’ve got the ability to knock the ball around,” Baker said about Oregon’s keep-away skills. “I thought they did a better job of possession than we did.”
Florida State didn’t have an offensive chance until seven minutes had ticked by in the first half, and its first shot came 15 minutes into the game.
“We were passing the ball well,” Baysa said. “We were keeping possession and moving the ball well.”
Another bright spot for Oregon was the play of the defense and sophomore goalie Peters. The netminder made key saves on three corner kicks in the second half, stepping up to take the ball from the Florida State forwards in each instance.
But Peters’ most stunning save came in the middle of the first half. After a Florida State cross went untouched by Oregon players, Peters had to fight a diving Florida State forward for possession. The ball then trickled past her and rolled towards the open goal. After an Oregon defender cleared the ball to the edge of the 18-yard box to Brelan, Peters dove back into position and saved Brelan’s ensuing shot.
With Peters playing at that level, Oregon’s defense stepped up to match her. Junior sweeper Starr Johnson was formidable anchoring the defense, while sophomore Lindsey Peterson and junior transfer Angela Romero joined her, and even threatened offensively in the game’s final minutes.
“We were fortunate to get one goal,” Baker said.
The worst news on the day for the Ducks wasn’t even the loss to Florida State. With 10 minutes to go in the game, David went down to the ground after tangling with a Florida State midfielder. After struggling to get up, David found that she couldn’t stand and had to be helped off the field. She did not return to the game. David is the Ducks’ leading scorer this year with eight points.
Oregon will open up its Pacific-10 Conference schedule at home next Friday against Arizona. The Wildcats are the only Pac-10 team with a worse record than the Ducks. They are 1-6 overall, while Oregon is now 3-8.