The University of Rhode Island women’s soccer team opened up Atlantic-10 conference play last week with a 3-2 loss at Duquesne before returning home and battling to a 1-1 tie versus last year’s Atlantic-10 regular season champions, Virginia Commonwealth University.
A late second-half surge for URI fueled by sophomore forward Tierra Garniss’s brace proved to be too little too late, as the Rams could not overcome a three-goal deficit in Pittsburgh. The Dukes found the net first, as Brianna Moore’s shot 28 minutes into the game came down off the crossbar, beat URI goalkeeper Faith Hutchins and gave Duquesne the 1-0 advantage going into halftime.
Just three minutes into the second half, the Dukes doubled the lead, going 2-0 up through a Jaimi Araujo free kick just outside the box. Things went from bad to worse for Rhode Island just 10 minutes later, as Araujo found the end of a long ball from Emma Bundy for her second goal of the night, giving the Dukes a commanding 3-0 lead.
Despite the deficit, Rhode Island wasn’t done yet. Garniss pulled a goal back in the 65th minute to make it 3-1. Just three minutes later, Garniss found herself in front of goal again, as she connected off of a cross from senior forward Tali O’Leary to make it 3-2 with 20 minutes left to play. This marked Garniss’s second two-goal game of her career, with the first coming just four games ago in a 3-2 comeback win at the University of Vermont.
Despite outshooting the Dukes 19-12 on the night, the Rams were unable to find the equalizing goal and ultimately fell to Duquesne 3-2 in their conference opener.
The Rams returned home just three days later to face VCU, a team who they’ve failed to beat in three previous meetings dating back to October 2014. Having benefited from a switch to a high press style of play in the second half against Duquesne, this was something that they planned to implement from the beginning against VCU, according to head coach Megan Jessee. These tactical adjustments from the Duquesne loss proved successful for the Rams, who found the opening goal just 65 seconds into the match. Sophomore midfielder Christina Sallent swung in a cross off the corner kick that found O’Leary, who guided the ball in at the back post to give Rhode Island the early 1-0 lead.
According to Jessee, the tactical adjustment from Duquesne is what brought URI the early lead.
“That was the difference, we ran ourselves into this game, as opposed to last week where we were a little more tactical about it,” Jesse said. “Obviously, we were a lot more effective with this. We have great forwards, they have great athleticism, so we can cut down the space pretty quickly.”
O’Leary’s first goal of the season was all that separated the two sides at halftime, as Rhode Island entered the half as 1-0 leaders. It was the first time all season that URI had gone into halftime with a lead.
“We needed it,” O’Leary said. “We definitely needed it. It gave our defense a little bit of a cushion, so we could play more out of the back, be more confident on the ball, have a little bit of breathing room, not be [tied] 0-0 or down by 1, but we still played with urgency.”
It only took VCU four minutes to find the equalizer after the break. Kanna Matsuhisa fired a shot from close range, but Faith Hutchins did enough to deflect it away from goal. However, it went only as far as Kendyl Sarver, who buried her team-leading fifth goal of the season from inside the box to make it 1-1.
Despite being outshot 13-20 and facing an onslaught of offensive pressure in the dying minutes of the game, seven saves from Hutchins on the day was enough to preserve URI’s fourth tie of the season as the game finished 1-1.
In what was a third consecutive tie at home, Head Coach Megan Jessee saw this as a very positive result for her team.
“Scoring early was great, especially against a team like this,” Jessee said. “[VCU] won the regular season last year, a very good team, so it was huge. This was the best 90 minutes we’ve played all year.”
URI will continue the search for their first conference win of the year as they travel to Davidson on Thursday night, with kickoff set for 7 p.m. on ESPN+.