The Alabama women’s soccer team kicked off its 2010 campaign on Friday at the Alabama Soccer Complex with a 2-1 victory over Samford. The win helped the Crimson Tide gain redemption for last season’s 3-0 loss to the Bulldogs in Birmingham.
Despite earning a victory to start the season, head coach Todd Bramble still felt the team needs improvement.
“I’m happy we got the win,” Bramble said, “but I am not satisfied at all with our performance. I thought we expended way too much energy in the buildup. We need to be more mature. It’s the goal of this program to play in the big games, so we have to be more responsible in how we prepare for those big games, so we can conserve our energy and use it in the big game. Samford was more energetic than we were.”
The Tide started the game firing on all cylinders as senior forward Brooke Rogers connected on a volley from junior Veronika Wolfkeil for an 18-yard strike to give Alabama the 1-0 lead in the third minute of the first half. Rogers was excited to score the first Tide goal of the season.
“I was relieved to get it out of the way,” she said, “but more than anything happy to put my team in a position to set the tone for this season. I think it was important to win this game. It’s a game that we lost last year, and I feel like in order to motivate everybody and feel good progress, it was important. But, we’re not satisfied.”
Alabama had a hard time penetrating through the Bulldogs defense following the first goal in the first half, at which point Samford began to put the pressure on Alabama. Tide senior goalkeeper Justine Bernier made a critical save to slow down Samford momentum in the first half as she blocked a shot from the Bulldogs’ midfielder Katie Proud to record her fifth save of the half.
Bernier continued to be too much for the Bulldogs in the second half and finished with a game-high nine saves.
“We’re getting more and more comfortable in the game with each other,” Bernier said. “Definitely can’t [just] have one goal scored on if the defense doesn’t pull off some big plays. We definitely wouldn’t have the results that we had if they didn’t make some big plays.”
In the second half, senior forward Victoria Frederick was tripped in the 18-yard box, resulting in a penalty kick scored by senior midfielder Rosaly Petriello to give the Tide the 2-0 lead at the 76th minute. Samford quickly responded with a goal from forward Lauren Cook to cut the lead to 2-1 with 10 minutes left in the game but could not complete the comeback.
Alabama picked up another win and improved its record to 2-0 after a 1-0 shutout of UAB on Monday night in Birmingham.
Rogers scored the match’s only goal seven minutes into the contest. The Tide missed many other scoring opportunities throughout the match, but one goal was enough.
Both of Alabama’s victories over the weekend were to teams the Tide lost to last season.
