STARKVILLE — Make no mistake, Kennadi Carbin didn’t play basketball in high school.
But don’t let the Mississippi State 5-foot-11 freshman fool you because she knows a little something about posting people up.
In soccer, though, the technique of positioning your body in front of a defender and keeping possession usually is called holding the ball. The skill is designed to give an individual on the attacking team time to scan the field and spot an open teammate. Judging from Carbin’s performance late in MSU’s match against Arkansas on Sunday, she has been listening to coach Aaron Gordon’s words of encouragement.
“In practice, we are always taught to run to the post,” Carbin said. “I am always getting yelled at to get to the front post. All I was thinking at that moment was, ‘Get your butt to the front post.’ ”
Carbin did exactly what Gordon wants after MSU gained possession and quickly counter-attacked. Holding the ball in to the left of the near post, Carbin received the pass from sophomore Mallory Eubanks and they laid the ball back to her teammate, who tucked the ball into the far corner to give MSU a 2-1 victory.
The win raised MSU’s record to 3-5-1 and 1-1 in the Southeastern Conference. More importantly, it snapped the Bulldogs’ 23-game losing streak in conference. In the process, Gordon earned his first SEC in his third season in Starkville.
“It just takes little moments like that to galvanize (a team and to get them to understand), ‘Oh, that’s why we do it. I get it now,’ ” Gordon said. “In the Arkansas game, there were a lot of moments like that, even though we were getting battered for 15 or 20 minutes of the game, where we were caught on our heels and were caught in the Arkansas Razorbacks blender.
“But within the game there were so many really good moments of stuff that we had been talking about time and time again. It is really hard to describe or re-enact until you have been in a game like that or Vanderbilt, where we really competed, but had some moments that were good learning experiences. We’re starting to see the maturation of our team responding to those moments.”
Gordon is starting to see Carbin, classmate Red Bruffett, and the rest of the Bulldogs understand the importance of the little things when it comes to scoring goals. Carbin said she didn’t need to make eye contact or to use a special signal to know where Eubanks was going to go and where she had to deliver the ball. Instead, Carbin, who is from Louisville, Kentucky, said she knew where Eubanks, who is from Lexington, Kentucky, was going to move because she has played against each other for a long time, so she had a feel for where her teammate likes the ball. She said it also helps that she and Eubanks are attacking players who have a similar mind-set, even if they have different skills. She said Eubanks is better with the ball at her feet and she is better with the ball in space.
“Me and Mallory we play really good together,” Carbin said. “We just connect on the field. She just knew I was there and in the right place.”
Carbin said that bond has solidified through summer practices into the fall. She said repetition has helped her and her teammates understand where everyone prefers to receive a ball. MSU will try to build on that work at 7 p.m. Friday when it plays host to Tennessee (5-1-3, 1-1) in a SEC game at the MSU Soccer Field.
Carbin said the victory against Arkansas provided a boost of confidence, especially after a 2-1 loss at Vanderbilt in the league opener.
“It was very important,” Carbin said. “We just wanted to come out there and play our game and win. We have been talking about SEC games for a long time. We are more comfortable with each other now. As we get more comfortable with each other, we are going to have more victories.
“When we played against Arkansas — they are a good team — but we started to realize we are a good team as well. We just have to come out and play like we are one. Our confidence wasn’t as high, but now it is high because we realize we can compete with these teams.”
Gordon also believes the victory at Arkansas has helped the players. He said the game-winning goal also will allow the players to see how hard work in practice on finishing and scoring can pay dividends. He said that hard work wasn’t paying off early in the season.
“We would make a run, but it always would be a run to the backside, or a run that was going to be to a spot that the easiest of chances could be scored,” Gordon said. “That doesn’t happen all of the time. You have to create traffic in front of the goal, you have to keep defenders honest, and you have to make goalkeepers stay on their line.”
Gordon said Carbin’s run and Eubanks’ goal are teaching points he can use in the continued development and maturation of a program that has only one senior. He said he and his assistant coaches are trying to encourage the Bulldogs and to build them into more well-rounded players who do the little things because they produce results. He feels Carbin’s ability to recognize she needed to make that run late in the game will help the team as it moves into the heart of the SEC schedule.
“I think Kennadi is a perfect example of a really quick, dangerous forward who came in but really didn’t (understand what she needed to do),” Gordon said. “At the club level, she was super dangerous. At the college level, she can be dangerous, but she has to understand what the value of being a forward is. It is the details. Scoring a goal is the end product of holding the ball well, of pressuring the player, or making the near-post run, or being a good header of the ball. Those things she really didn’t understand. She was just fast and athletic and could show an ability to get behind defenses. If that is all it would be about, every wide receiver in the SEC would score a touchdown. They have to know how to run routes, how to break coverage, how to read coverage. All of those things are in play because I am going to assume they are all fast when they get into our league.
“You have to have quickness and explosiveness, but she is starting to learn her position a lot better. I think she will just continue to get better.”
Gordon also said the players have been working individually the past few weeks on finishing their scoring chances. Dubbed “afternoon scoring” by Gordon, he said the players are putting themselves in situations so they can get repetitions to prepare themselves for game situations. Fittingly, Gordon said Kylie and Eubanks have had plenty of opportunities to finish scoring chances in those sessions. On Sunday, the extra work paid off.
“Things slow down when you have been there before,” Gordon said. “I think that is kind of the thing we’re trying to instill in our players.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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