Box Score

The Louisville Cardinals women’s soccer team stunned Kent State on Sunday, snapping the Flashes’ three-game win streak with a surprising 3-2 overtime victory in Louisville.

Coming into Sunday’s game, the Flashes (4-2) had only given up one goal in its five games this season and rode a three-game win streak, which featured a triplet of 1-0 wins, one of which was against No. 24 Colorado.

That was the Flashes’ situation going into Sunday’s match. Coming out, it was a different story. 

Kent State dominated the first half of Sunday’s contest. Redshirt freshman Doni Capehart scored early in the eighth minute with a header in the box. 30 minutes later, senior Stephanie Haugh boomed a 25-yarder into the back of the net.

Kent State’s dominance was short-lived, however, as the Cardinals took the game by storm in the second half. Louisville out-shot Kent State 17-0 in the final 45 minutes, scoring goals in the 53rd and 86th minutes, carrying all the momentum into overtime.

On a breakaway in the second minute of overtime, Louisville’s Alison Price booted the winning goal between the legs of Kent State goalkeeper Stephanie Senn, who had only given up one goal this season before giving up the three to Louisville.

Senn, who tallied a career-high 11 saves on Sunday, said the Kent State defense got tired, let its guard down and allowed Louisville’s offense penetrate. 

“We’ve got to take accountability for ourselves, and not put it on (Louisville),” Senn said.

Capehart mentioned that her team faced “a lot of adversity in the game.” The Orient, Ohio native said the referees weren’t being fair throughout the game and factored into the loss.

“The calls really weren’t going our way,” she said. “We had a lot of missed opportunities. We can’t let the adversity get to us.”

Kent State head coach Rob Marinaro, on the other hand, took a slightly different approach to the game’s end result and gave all the credit to a talented Cardinals team.

“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Louisville,” he said. “We played a very high-caliber team that put us under a lot of pressure. We have to learn to keep our momentum going.”

After five straight away games, the Flashes return home this Friday for the first time since their season-opening 3-0 win over Western Illinois on Aug. 22. 

Kent State will face the Oakland University Bears at 4 p.m. at Zoeller Field.

Contact Ben Orner at [email protected].