Story by Adam Redfern
Staff writer
After a two-hour rain delay, Murray State lost its season opener 4-3 in double overtime against Xavier.
Head Coach Matt Lodge was happy with his team’s performance in the first half, but thought they could’ve executed better in the second half.
“For the first half we were fantastic,” Lodge said. “You go into half time with a 3-1 team against a very good team, things are promising. But as I said at half time, they are not going to go away, they are gonna come back. The things we dealt with in the first half we let slip in the second half.”
The Racers struck first in the 19th minute when junior forward Rebecca Kubin crossed one into the box and sophomore forward Abby Jones headed it past the keeper to get the game going 1-0.
Xavier junior forward Samatha Dewey answered quickly with a goal of her own to tie the game at 1-1.
Murray State retook the lead in the 24th minute when senior forward Miyah Watford collected a loose ball around the penalty spot and placed it into the bottom corner, taking the game to 2-1.
In the 43rd minute, senior midfielder Elizabeth Tilton played a through ball to Kubin who tracked it down to extend the Racers’ lead to 3-1.
At the beginning of the second half, Dewey added another goal for her team when she slipped past the Racers’ back line, cutting the lead to 3-2.
Dewey completed her hat trick in the 64th minute to tie the game at 3-3.
The Racers saw two more opportunities to win the game. However, they failed to finish either play and regular time ended in a 3-3 draw.
The teams battled for every ball in overtime but nothing came out of the first half. In the second half, a corner from Xavier was slammed into the back of the net by a header from Dewey to claim a 4-3 win.
The Racers are looking to bounce back when they play Samford in Birmingham, Alabama, this Saturday, Aug. 25, at 2 p.m.
