On a dreary Monday afternoon in the Bluff City, No. 4 Memphis women’s soccer routed Temple 6-0 in the final match of the regular season after the match was preciously rained out on the day before.
The Tigers allowed just one shot attempt by the Owls all match, which came in the final ten seconds, in one of the most convincing wins of the season. With this result, the Tigers secure their first undefeated regular season since 2011-12 and the third consecutive undefeated conference slate in the regular season.
“I just liked the mentality (of the team),” Brooks Monaghan said after the game. “Given the conditions, the game being moved to Monday I told them ‘there’d be two fans and a dog here…’ I think our mentality was good from the start and that carried throughout the game.”
Memphis did it through a brutally aggressive offense, putting up 27 shots with 11 being on goal and producing 13 corner kicks. Temple dealt with an extreme level of offensive pressure for 90 minutes, so it wasn’t able to do much else beyond sit behind the midfield line for most of the match.
There were five Tigers who scored: Ashley Henderson, who did so twice in 48th minute and again in the 64th, Alex Mackay in the 8th, Flavie Dubé in the 22nd, Mihiro Furuya in the 65th and Natalie Leibel in the 67th.
Even for the No. 4 team in the country, this was the epitome of the word “dominance.” Holding a team without a single shot attempt until there were six seconds left in the game is extremely rare, and if Teagan Harkins didn’t fire a ball at reserve keeper Mackenzie Yoder, it would’ve been a first in program history.
“I think our defensive performance was solid,” junior defender Finley Lavin said. “We didn’t get a lot of chances to be in the final third, but I think when we did, we definitely got it out and it was a really good performance from us.”
The Tigers will be back in action on Nov. 3 when they travel to Lakewood Ranch, Florda for the American Conference tournament where they will face eight-seed UAB.
