Oct. 17, 2014
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky women’s soccer team collected a 3-0 win over the Ole Miss Rebels on Friday night in dominating fashion, as the Wildcats scored two goals in the first half and one in the second frame to put away Ole Miss and move to 4-3-0 in the Southeastern Conference.
“We played very well,” UK head coach Jon Lipsitz said. “We have a huge amount of respect for Ole Miss. It’s a team that, I’ve been here six years, we’ve never beaten. That tells you the level of respect we have for their coaching staff, for how organized they are and for just the way they play. We really respect them and so we’ve had to be really sharp this week in training. It’s our second week in a row with just fantastic training. It’s the old stereo type of you play the way you train. Well it’s true. Very proud of how we played and (we) challenged them at halftime that it (a 2-0 lead) wasn’t enough. We wanted to win the second half also and they really responded.”
The win for UK was its first over Ole Miss since the 1997 season, and was head coach Jon Lipsitz’s first-ever win over the Rebels in his career.
The opening goal of the match came in the 13th minute from sophomore Zoe Swift, who scored her third goal of the season for the Wildcats on a clinical far-post finish to put UK on top early. Fellow sophomore Jade Klump played a perfectly-placed and weighted ball from the midfield stripe down the right side to a waiting – and onside- Swift, who collected down the right-hand side 25 yards from goal. Swift then beat her defender 1v1 and finished low and to the far post past a diving Kelly McCormick.
Just 12 minutes later, Kentucky (9-5-0, 4-3-0 SEC) would double its lead, as Courtney Raetzman notched her second goal in as many matches, shooting a ball from the top of the box, which took a deflection off an Ole Miss defender and ricocheted past McCormick to put UK ahead 2-0. The goal was unassisted, and comes on the heels of Raetzman’s game-winning goal last Friday night against No. 24 South Carolina.
At halftime, UK would hold a 2-0 lead over Ole Miss (7-4-4, 2-2-3 SEC) as the Rebels were held without a single shot or corner kick in the opening 45 minutes, as the Wildcats held a 11-0 shots advantage and 3-0 lead on corner kicks.
Sophomore Cara Ledman would put the three points in the bag and wrap up the match in the 61st minute as the sophomore ripped a re-fired corner kick from 40 yards out past McCormick to the upper-left 90 and deflected off the crossbar and into the back of the net. The goal for Ledman was her third of the season, and like UK’s second goal, was unassisted.
Kentucky outshot the Rebels 16-5 in the match, and had six shots on goal to Ole Miss’ two. Kentucky mustered out seven corners to the Rebels two.
The win puts Kentucky provisionally in a tie for sixth place on the SEC table. The Wildcats will face co-SEC leaders, No. 5 Florida, on Sunday afternoon. The match will be televised live by the SEC Network with Glenn Davis and Richard Broad.
For continuing coverage of UK women’s soccer, log on to UKathletics.com.
