Arkansas Tops Kentucky in Thursday Night Dual
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Arkansas Razorbacks scored two goals in 19 seconds in the first half, and a pair of goals in the second half to pick up their 10th win of the season, 4-0 over Kentucky on Thursday night at Razorback Field in Fayetteville.
With the win, Arkansas moves to 10-3-2 overall on the season and picks up its fifth Southeastern Conference win to move to 5-2-0 in league play this year. Kentucky falls to 4-12-0 and 0-7-0 in SEC play.
Arkansas went ahead in the 23rd minute on a penalty that was awarded for a late tackle inside the penalty area by the Wildcat back line. The spot kick was converted by Kayla McKeon, her seventh goal of the season.
Just 19 seconds later, the Razorbacks doubled their lead off the next attack as Emily Russell scored her first goal of the season on a serve-and-finish header from Marissa Kinsey.
Kentucky will take the rest of the weekend off with this weekend marking a stand-alone weekend in Southeastern Conference play – where each team only plays one match either on Thursday, Friday or Sunday.
UK was denied two chances at goal in the opening half of action. Tanya Samarzich was fed in a beautiful ball by Gretchen Mills to the top of the box and Arkansas goalkeeper Taylor Beitz came off her line to make a brilliant save on the Samarzich shot. Additionally, in the 44th minute, UK had penalty shouts for a handball in the box off of an Emma Shields shot from distance, but they were waved off by the referee.
Tori Cannata tripled the Arkansas lead in the 54th minute off a turn and volley finish from about 12 yards as she received the ball from just outside the box centrally, turned with the volley touch and pummeled the finish into the side netting for the third Arkansas goal.
With UK needing three goals, the Wildcats pushed numbers forward – but were caught on a counter by Brooke Pirkle – who hammered home a 4-0 lead for Arkansas off the left post for the goal.
The next match for Kentucky will be on Thursday night, Oct. 18 at the Bell Soccer Complex against Ole Miss. The match will kickoff at 7:30 p.m. ET and will be shown live on the SEC Network+ and the ESPN app with Dave Baker (pxp) and Stuart Pope (color) on the call from Lexington.
For the latest on the Kentucky women’s soccer team, follow @UKWomensSoccer on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as on the web at UKathletics.com.
