Midfielder Cory Ryan makes a cut with the ball during the Terps’ scoreless draw with Michigan State Sept. 21 at Ludwig Field.
Shortly after the Terrapins women’s soccer team and Michigan State ended Sunday afternoon’s game in a scoreless draw, coach Jonathan Morgan discussed how his team’s recent increase of depth helped it remain energized throughout the 110-minute game.
Midfielder Cory Ryan played in both matches this past weekend after missing the previous two games because of a broken arm. And forward Gabby Galanti played about 35 minutes in both a 1-0 loss to Michigan on Friday and the tie with Michigan State after making her season debut against Rutgers on Sept. 12.
Still, the Terps struggled to finish their scoring chances despite having an array of different players capable of finding the back of the net. The Terps were shut out in both games this weekend, extending their scoring drought to 245 minutes, which dates back to their match with the Scarlet Knights.
“We’ve got a lot more numbers and a lot more pieces that we can go to right now,” Morgan said. “The last part of it — trying to find out who’s going to score — we’ll have to figure that one out.”
Last season, the Terps leaned on one player for the majority of their scoring production. Forward Hayley Brock, who found the back of the net 12 times, produced more than one-third of the Terps’ goals last season.
But after Brock graduated and Ashley Spivey — the Terps’ second leading scorer a year ago — transferred to Central Florida, Morgan’s team entered this season lacking an established scoring presence.
Ryan and forward Alex Doody started up top in the Terps’ season opener against No. 1 UCLA. While Doody has started all eight games, Ryan had to miss time after breaking her arm against Pepperdine.
In her absence, Shade Pratt moved from defense to offense to become the starting forward opposite Doody. Recently, however, the Terps have tried a variety of different combinations up front.
Against Michigan, Doody and Pratt started the game, but Galanti and forward Natasha-Ntone Kouo also saw time in the attacking third of the field during the first half. After intermission, Morgan used a fifth player up top, replacing Pratt with Ryan in the 64th minute of an eventual 1-0 loss.
“It’s kind of what we’ve been working on in practice,” Ryan said. “With a couple injuries to forwards, we’re just trying to use as [many] people as we can to try to see if anyone can finish.”
But the Wolverines’ compact defense stifled each of the options Morgan tried at forward Friday. Pratt and Ryan were the only Terps forwards to attempt shots in the game, and though the Terps fired 23 shots against Michigan State on Sunday afternoon, just five came from forwards, including four from Ryan.
As a team, the Terps failed to find holes in the Spartans’ defense. They were held scoreless for regulation and both overtime periods despite attempting six shots on goal.
“We didn’t finish our chances,” midfielder Lauren Berman said. “They compact a lot on defense, so we didn’t get a lot of forwards or runs made into the final third very well to get good shots off.”
At the conclusion of the weekend, 17 Terps stepped between the white lines at Ludwig Field but could not produce a single goal. And though the Terps’ depth may help them stay fresh late in games, they’ll hope to find a few players who are capable of finding their way into the scoring column.
“We talked about a lot of things and we trained a lot of things yesterday, and they did everything that we asked them to do,” Morgan said Sunday. “So it all showed except for the final piece.”
