Oregon women’s soccer has failed to record a win through seven straight contests as it fell 2-0 to Denver (4-0-4) on Sunday at home.
The Ducks (0-6-1) entered the matchup on a three-game losing streak. They were coming off a disappointing loss against California Baptist on Thursday as Oregon had an opportunity to salvage a draw in the final minutes of that matchup. A saved penalty denied the Ducks of their first point at home this season. They were even hungrier to get results on Sunday in their game against the Pioneers.
Right away Oregon was playing with a sense of urgency. In the third minute, the Ducks had a chance to score an early goal off the counterattack. A collision with the Denver goalkeeper wasn’t called and the Pioneers had an opportunity to get down the field.
Oregon goalkeeper Maddy Goldberg was once again strong for the Ducks. She saved five shot attempts in the first half. The Oregon defense seemed calmer than they did in their previous matches and played more unified in the first half.
The best opportunity for the Ducks came in the 13th minute. Ajanae Respass lobbed the ball toward the goal but it was punched away by the Denver goalkeeper. Oregon had a second opportunity but the follow-up shot was off target.
The Pioneers had a chance to go up 1-0 at the end of the half. Following a Denver corner, Vanessa Murray shot the ball from distance but Goldberg poked it away to come up with another big save.
“[Goldberg’s] obviously grown into the role, she’s been here for a long time,” Oregon head coach Graeme Abel said. “She’s got that level of training and things like that, and so she’s done extremely well for us in games.”
The Pioneers had 17 shot attempts to the Ducks’ six and six corners in the first half. Even though Denver dominated the stat sheet, the first half seemed evenly matched.
But the Pioneers came out of the half reenergized.
The first goal came in the 51st minute when Liv Moritz headed the ball past Goldberg and into the bottom center of the goal.
“So we came out of the second half a little flat, we got to look into that and why that happens,” Abel said. “And then you know, they obviously scored and we’re trying to dig ourselves out of a hole.”
It didn’t take Denver much longer to net their second goal. Moritz secured a brace in the 60th minute off a breakaway goal.
After a pretty solid first half for the Ducks, they once again struggled to string together consistency for a full 90 minutes.
Oregon had a couple more chances in the attacking third, but Denver had a strong control of the match.
Abel said moving forward the main thing the Ducks need to do to give themselves the best chance of winning is scoring first.
“We get our first goal. We get some confidence about it, and then we can start to control it at the end a little bit more,” Abel said. “But like I said, when you concede the first goal, you end up chasing the game.”
Oregon will hit the road for two games as it scramble to get results. It plays Boise State (2-1-4) at 4 p.m. on Thursday on ESPN+.
