The day after the Terrapin women’s soccer team got home from Dartmouth, coach Brian Pensky had them awake early in the morning for practice.
The second-year coach was not upset about his team’s 1-0 loss to the Big Green on Friday night, but was more dissatisfied with his squad’s lack of competitive effort in the first half.
“They outplayed us all throughout the field,” Pensky said. “Our team didn’t come out the way we needed to. They just outworked us.”
Even though the scoreboard read just 1-0 at the game’s finish, the Terps were outplayed from the start.
The Terps had controlled play in their previous two games, dominating the ball in their offensive zone. But Friday, Dartmouth had more than three times as many shots as the Terps.
In the 35th minute, Dartmouth freshman midfielder Maggie Goldstein received a pass in the box and blew the shot past Terp goalkeeper Nikki Resnick and into the top right corner.
“[Dartmouth] came in 0-2, certainly not wanting to go 0-3,” Pensky said. “They were more desperate, and it showed.”
The one bright spot of the game was Resnick, whose 14 saves puts her in second place on the Terps’ career saves list.
Resnick has been the one mainstay for the Terps this season, but she lacked offensive support Friday, and her stellar play was all for naught.
“She’s been in the last two years, and now this year, a special player,” Pensky said. “She had a great game. We take a performance like that from Nikki for granted.”
The Terps have two more games this week against non-ACC opponents before they enter the always-difficult conference play.
“This is good because it’s not an ACC game, and it’s a lesson learned early,” Pensky said. “It showed us that you can never take a team for granted and never not show up for a game.”
Contact reporter Mark Selig at mseligdbk@gmail.com.
