Gamecocks defeat Auburn Friday, Arkansas Sunday
South Carolina continued its success this season by defeating the Arkansas Razorbacks on Sunday by a score of 1-0.
The latest win moves the Gamecocks’ record to 10-1-1 overall and 3-1 in SEC play. The win also gives junior goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo her 14th career shutout.
After a slow 18 minutes to start off the game, sophomore midfielder Raina Johnson scored the team’s only goal on a well-placed cross from sophomore defender Caroline Gray.
The goal gave Johnson her team-leading eighth point of the season, and she has been very pleased by the improvement of her play from last season to this season.
“I think the biggest change I have made from last year to this year is being more tacitly aggressive when I get the ball,” Johnson said. “It’s better to be proactive and anticipate where the ball is going to go so I can be more aggressive going towards the goal.”
Although the Gamecocks came out on the winning end, they missed a lot of opportunities, which Johnson feels the team can work to improve on.
“I feel like we should have beat them by a little more than we did, but that’s why this week at practice we’re going to work on finishing and attacking more and just putting things together in the final third, and just finish from there,” Johnson said.
Despite the struggles with scoring a few more goals, head coach Shelley Smith was still satisfied with how her team played on Sunday.
“We knew we needed to play our game and not get caught up in our opponent’s game,” Smith said. “We needed to keep the ball in order to create chances for ourselves. I thought we did really well Friday night (against Auburn) at being more offensive than we had been in the past few games. We were hoping to do that today, but it was a difficult game — Sundays always are — but I thought we handled the Sunday game well.”
After losing their first conference game of the year against Georgia, the Gamecocks have since responded with back-to-back SEC wins against Auburn Friday and Arkansas Sunday.
The Gamecocks’ next game is Wednesday against a tough Florida opponent, and Johnson said staying focused will be a key factor in the game in Gainesville, Fla.
“I think we have to keep doing what we’ve been doing during practice by staying focused and keeping our minds right, so we know that we can beat them and take it to them,” Johnson said.
Smith said she also feels focus is a big key to Wednesday’s game.
“We’ll focus one game at a time,” Smith said. “We know Florida is always a good team, especially at home, and we know what we’re up against. Obviously, we have a good team, and we have to go in and play.”