The Owls fell in the opening round of Atlantic Sun Conference playoffs at home 3-2 to the fifth seed Stetson Hatters.
Kennesaw State (6-10-3) erased a two-goal deficit, but in the end their hopes of repeating a run to the conference championship were ended.
“We dug ourselves a hole early on, didn’t play very well in the first 15, 20 minutes or so. And then we had to keep battling to play ourselves back into the game,” KSU head coach Rob King said. “I was very pleased with the effort, it’s a tough way to start off by giving up a couple of goals in a championship game but we kept fighting and we finally found the goal to get us back into the game.”
Stetson came out on the offensive in the opening minutes, putting themselves up by two goals to by the eighth minute courtesy of two headers from sophomore forward Sarah Collins. The goals put the Owls on their heels, now having to fight back to get a grip on the game in the early stages.
KSU found themselves fighting to get back on level terms for most of the match until Carly Pressgrove pulled one back right before halftime with an assist from Ida Hepsoe which made the score 2-1.
KSU came into the second half with new life, chasing the ball with tenacity and spending the majority of the last thirty minutes with the ball in Stetson’s final third.
The Owls grabbed an equalizing goal in the form of an Abby Roth header from a Hepsoe corner in the 59 minute for her first of the night and her fifth of the season. Hepsoe’s two assists put her to eight for the season, the most on the team and tied for the highest in the Atlantic Sun Conference.
The match would have to go into two ten-minute sudden death periods to determine who would advance. Both teams pushed for a winner, but it was the Hatters that scored the killer goal in overtime via a stunner from midfielder Cornelia Sochor.
“In the second half we were very dominate, we outshot them 13-3 and then equalized and had several chances the put the game away in regulation but we weren’t clinical enough in front of goal,” King said. “It can be quite a cruel game when you don’t put your chances away.”
The Owls ended the season with a positive outlook for the upcoming season. “The future looks very bright for them, we’ve got a fantastic class coming in, and those that played as many minutes and they did this year that weren’t expecting to, they’re gonna be benefited by that and they’re gonna be pushing our recruits every step of the way,” King said. “The future looks very good going forward.”
