The South Carolina men’s soccer team suffered its first defeat in Sun Belt Conference play on Saturday night dropping a 2-0 home decision to UCF. The Gamecocks (7-4-1) weren’t able to create many chances, only totaling nine shots in the game with five on goal while the Knights (3-5-1, 1-2-0) scored off of a set piece and then took advantage of a South Carolina team that was stretched while looking for an equalizer in their pair of second half goals, which came in the 61st and 78th minutes.
South Carolina will hold its Senior Night game against Old Dominion on Friday, October 10. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from Stone Stadium.
Here’s what head coach Tony Annan had to say after the game against UCF.
What were your takeaways from tonight?
“We lost to a team that wanted to win a game more than we did. We lost to a team that was technically better with the ball than we were. Physically, they worked harder than we did, and we lost the game. That’s what happens when you don’t work as hard as the other team.”
You’ve said that two or three times this year. How do you correct that?
“Look, we have an amazing group of lads, a solid team, a very deep squad and some excellent player. It was a bump in the road, it’s one game, so we just have to get back to training. When we train well, train hard and work hard, we’re a very good team. I’m not down on the team at all. I have their backs, no problem, but they need to know that when they don’t work hard and don’t do what they can do, they suffer, and it’s happened to us probably three times this year now. We just have to work harder and get more consistent because when we’re good, we’re good.”
A lot of chances and a lot of shots in games this year, but not a lot tonight. More about you guys, or what UCF was doing?
“UCF prepared very well defensively. I thought their press was very good, and we struggled with it. The times we did break it, technically, we broke down in the final third. We didn’t create as many chances as we normally do, mainly because of technical deficiencies or forcing things we didn’t need to force, being in a rush. Even at zero-zero, we weren’t good enough in the final third. We have to keep working at it.”
What went wrong in the second half?
“If you think about it, they didn’t create any chances in the first half, really. In the second half, we weren’t really dealing with that much. They get a set piece and score off a set piece, and that’s pure mentality; that’s the will to win. They put the set piece over. One-nil down, now we have to make some changes to try to get back into the game and steal the game back. We went for it and we got caught napping.”
On goalie Filip Versterre …
“I’m not down on any of the lads, Filip, none of them. They know they got beat by a team that wanted it more than we did, and they’ll suffer tonight because of that, then get back on the horse and train really well next week and hopefully bounce back. Versterre is getting better and better each week. He made some big mistakes early in the season, corrected all of that, worked really hard and made some great saves tonight. He’s in a great spot, and so are all the guys. I’m not down at all on the guys.”
