A loss isn’t how coach Aaron Rodgers anticipated closing the non-conference portion of the schedule. But from the beginning of Friday's game, his team just couldn’t keep up with Xavier’s pace in Ohio’s 2-1 loss.
“I think we lacked a little bit of urgency at times and so obviously that is something we are going to want to work on,” Rodgers said. “We want to be able to put teams under pressure more than we did today.”
After about 20 minutes, Rodgers had substituted all three of his forwards, hoping to add some aggression and pace to the game.
And shortly before he made his substitutions, Xavier took the early one-goal lead.
Like his team has done practically all season, it had to fight from behind. But that is something his team is good at. When the Bobcats go down a goal, it finds a way to fight back into the game.
“Unfortunately, that’s been a trend since I’ve been here,” Rodgers said. “We’ve given up goals and then we’ve decided that’s when we turn up our energy.”
At halftime, Rodgers said he told his team to turn up the energy. He said they need to get the next goal.
In the 52nd minute, that happened. A nearly perfect lobbed pass from freshman Alivia Milesky found freshman Remi Eades. Eades controlled the ball off her chest and she finished down the middle for her first goal of the season.
"There were times where we put them under pressure and did a lot of good things and scored a great goal," Rodgers said.
The pass from Milesky was one of many well-placed balls from her throughout the game. Each time she got the ball, she looked to set up a player and find a way to get the ball into open space.
For the fifth time this season, it looked like Ohio was going into overtime. But a late goal from Xavier ended Ohio hopes of closing the non-conference schedule with a win.
"We continue to find ourselves in a situation where we are right at the door and we're not even knocking, it's halfway open, but we're just having a hard time walking through it," Rodgers said. "We've played some difficult teams, we've competed, but we're just not quite getting the results."
Ohio (2-4-1) will play Bowling Green on Friday for the first conference game of the season.
