STARKVILLE — Aaron Gordon has seen the improvement.
Gordon and his coaching staff have reconfigured the Mississippi State women’s soccer program to add depth, to improve conditioning, and to bolster the overall skill level in their first two full seasons so that the Bulldogs look completely different from when he arrived in Starkville from Texas Tech in 2012.
But Gordon also has been coaching soccer long enough to know results drive college athletics. That’s why Gordon understands all of the things he and his coaching staff have done to elevate the program are tempered this season by the team’s 0-4 start. Even more disconcerting is the fact that MSU is tied for last in the Southeastern Conference in goals scored (one) entering matches against Nicholls State at 7 tonight and against Southern Mississippi at 6 p.m. Sunday at the MSU Soccer Field.
While Gordon agrees teaching players how to score goals is the most challenging aspect of coaching soccer, he wants to see the Bulldogs change their approach on offense because he feels the team has created plenty of quality scoring chances in losses to South Alabama (1-0), Murray State (2-1), Florida Gulf Coast (2-0), and South Florida (3-0). Those losses came on the heels of exhibition victories against Tennessee-Martin (1-0) and Memphis (2-1).
“They’re not paying big dollars for right backs or defensive midfielders or a winger,” Gordon said. “It is all about scoring goals. Ultimately, that is the task our team has to have. … Ultimately, you have to convert chances. That is what our game is about.”
Freshman midfielder Kiley Martens has MSU’s only goal. Sophomore forward Mallory Eubanks leads the team with six shots, but MSU is tied for 12th in the SEC in shots (42). Texas A&M leads the league with 106, while Missouri is second (82). Texas A&M also is first in the SEC with 13 goals, while Ole Miss is second (12).
But MSU also is tied with South Carolina for sixth in the league in corner kicks (23), which goes to Gordon’s point that the Bulldogs are working to put themselves in scoring position. He said Eubanks and freshmen Lauryn “Red” Bruffett and Kennadi Carbin have worked hard to make their presence felt as attacking players. Gordon said those players need to understand they can do even more. With only one senior (Shelby Jordan) on the roster, though, Gordon acknowledges learning how to finish at the highest level Division I takes time to master.
“I think the main thing is we need to continue and realize a lot of good had to go into getting you to the position to get that (scoring chance),” Gordon said. “Not scoring clear chances is really frustrating, but that is clearly what soccer is all about, the makes and the misses. … When I look at video of our team play, I see lots of good moments. We just need a lot of those moments happening on a frequent basis, which will continue to give us chances and then we will put it in the back of the net.”
Gordon said MSU had a strong week of practice coming off a trip to Tampa, Florida, in which it lost to Florida Gulf Coast, a team that advanced to the NCAA tournament in 2014, and USF, a team that returns nine starters from a squad that went 13-7-2 a year ago. On the other hand, MSU lost its leading goal scorer — Shannen Jainudeen — from 2014 and is relying on a roster packed with freshmen and sophomores that lacks a proven goal scorer like former MSU standout Elisabeth Sullivan, who scored 16 goals as a senior in 2013. Gordon believes MSU would be 4-0 if it had someone like Sullivan on the roster, but he doesn’t want to make excuses for the team’s inability to finish its “clear chances” and its “half chances.” Learning to be more aggressive and to pressure defenses and goalkeepers with shots because you never know what is going to happen is part of that process, Gordon said.
“That really was our mantra all week,” Gordon said. “Let’s be in front of the goal all week, let’s make half-chances into real chances because so many good things happen when you do that.”
Gordon hopes Eubanks emerges into a scorer who can be as dangerous as Sullivan, the program’s all-time leading scorer. He feels she has the speed and dribbling ability of Sullivan. He said the difference between the players is Sullivan is a little more advanced in her ability to strike balls with both feet from anywhere on the field. Also, Gordon believes Sullivan had the “shooter’s mentality” that allowed her to believe it was OK if one of her shots missed because she was going to keep shooting and eventually find the mark. Gordon hopes that attitude infects the Bulldogs and enables them to pepper goalkeepers so they can control the tempo and see tangible results in the win column that reflect the program’s improvement.
“We as a team have to be a little more opportunistic,” Gordon said. “We are creating the quality chances that you need in a game to score, but we need to take more half-chances — deflections, rebounds. You don’t know what is going to happen, and they are going to go in, too.
“This week, we have worked on getting our team to understand it is OK if you miss,” Gordon sid. “No one is going to be mad at you for shooting and missing or crossing and the team not being there. They all generate offense in one way because we have enough pieces on this team to be pretty dynamic when we want to be. We’re just holding back in terms of worrying about the outcomes. We need to be less worried about the outcome of the actual skill and let it fly.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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