Forward Alex Anthony is swarmed by the Michigan defense and forced to pass the ball away for a turnover when the Terps lost to Michigan 1-0 at Ludwig Field on Oct. 1, 2015.
After surrendering a goal with two minutes remaining in the second overtime period against Illinois last weekend, Terrapins women’s soccer coach Jonathan Morgan said his team couldn’t afford any more mental lapses.
But in the 36th minute of the Terps match against Michigan on Thursday night, a miscue cost Morgan’s squad.
Wolverines defender Christina Ordonez crossed the ball into the box, and it hit Terps defender Amanda Gerlitz’s chest. But Gerlitz couldn’t control the ball as it landed in front of midfielder Abby Kastroll, who found the center of the net to put the Wolverines ahead.
The Terps couldn’t generate enough offense to offset Gerlitz’s mistake, and they fell, 1-0, before an announced 804 at Ludwig Field.
“When something doesn’t go your way, it’s always difficult,” forward Alex Anthony said. “You kind of think, ‘How are we going to recover from this? What are we going to do to change this?’ It’s tough to go down that early. It’s time that we learned from the mistake of giving the ball up off of mental errors.”
Michigan (8-4, 3-1 Big Ten), which entered Thursday tied for the most goals in the Big Ten (25), set its aggressive pace early, nearly scoring in the 17th minute. Midfielder Madisson Lewis was left open at the top of the box when she launched a shot. Goalkeeper Rachelle Beanlands stopped the shot, and defender Kayla Shea cleared the rebound out of bounds.
The Wolverines have used a 5-2-3 formation the entire season, but to Morgan’s surprise, they came out in a 4-4-2 alignment Thursday. The Terps (5-7, 0-4) struggled to adjust to the different setup, not breaking it down until the end of the first half, Morgan said.
Anthony tried to spark the Terps offense, attempting three of her team’s four shots in the opening period.
In the 25th minute, forward Madison Turner passed the ball to Anthony on the right side of the box and she split two defenders, but her shot skimmed the left crossbar and rolled out of bounds.
Defender Shannon Collins found Anthony again about two minutes later. Anthony pivoted around defender Anna Soccorsi and launched a shot, but goalkeeper Megan Hinz made a diving save.
“They’re a high-pressure team,” defender Sarah Fichtner said. “We’ve seen that before. All the Big Ten teams are similar. They’re fast. They’re physical. We just need to come more prepared.”
After halftime, Morgan switched his team’s formation from a 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2, which gave the Terps more depth in the middle of the field defensively, Fichtner said. But the Terps offense went quiet, attempting just five shots in the second frame and not attempting any until the 71st minute.
The Wolverines, meanwhile, continued to push the pace and attempted two shots in the opening five minutes of the period.
“We got kids running side-by-side with a player, and our kid allows herself to get pushed off ball,” Morgan said. “They play a ball, and we have to track it and pressure. We don’t do it. That’s not Michigan. That’s us.”
With the offense unable to generate many scoring chances, the unlucky bounce off Gerlitz’s chest led to the Terps’ fourth straight loss.
“We haven’t been able to get 11 players to come out and compete at the same level for 90 minutes,” Morgan said. “There were a bunch of kids afraid of physicality, afraid to compete. They just crumbled.”
