Sept. 12, 2008
AUBURN, Ala. -
Auburn-Florida State Box Score in PDF Format
Marquette-South Carolina Box Score in PDF Format
The Auburn soccer team played one of its best and most complete matches of the season but wasn't able to anything on the scoreboard to show for it as it fell to No. 4 Florida State, 3-0, on Friday night in the second match of the Auburn Soccer Classic.
Auburn played a sound possession game and had ample opportunities from in close but Florida State's goalkeeper Kate Milstead was solid if not stellar in net. Defensively Auburn allowed Sanna Talonen to collect two goals while Amanda DaCosta netted a goal and an assist.
"We played a great game. We out-cornered them and we had more shots on goal than them in the first half. Soccer is a frustrating game, sometimes you play really well and the score line doesn't reflect that at all," Auburn Head Coach Karen Hoppa said. "It's unfortunate that we gave up three (goals). If we would have scored on just one of those chances in the first half it's a different ballgame."
Auburn and Florida State each finished the first half with seven shots with Auburn getting an point-blank chance from senior Kara Kasten that Milstead made a diving save on with 15 minutes left and then two minutes later it was juniors Rebecca Howell and Caitlin King having their chances thwarted by FSU defenders. Kasten had another chance inside the box with just over 11 minutes remaining but Milstead got a foot on it to keep Auburn off the board.
Florida State took the 1-0 lead at 22:49 when Talonen split a pair of defenders and then put a shot between the legs of Auburn goalkeeper Allison Whitworth, who finished the night with four saves.
The goal came just minutes after Jenn Johnson stopped a FSU scoring chance when she cleared DaCosta's shot that was headed for the far post off the line.
The second half was a lot of back-and-forth action until Talonen broke through with her fourth goal of the season, heading in a Lauren Switzer corner kick at 66:00.
DaCosta then iced the game when she went upper 90 from the top of the 18 off of a Tiffany McCarty feed.
Mary Nicholson had a chance to get one back in the 78th for Auburn when but her header attempt off of a Kasten corner sailed high and wide.
Auburn finished the night with 13 shots and six corners while Florida State had 15 shots and five corners. Milstead made four saves for FSU while Whitworth also finished with four.
Auburn (2-4-1) will close out the weekend on Sunday at 1:30pm when it plays host to Marquette. Florida State (5-1-0) will play South Carolina at 11am.
In the first match of the day, South Carolina's Kayla Grimsley scored with just 3:46 remaining when she headed in a Shannon Bigbie corner to give USC the 1-0 win over Marquette.