By Aidan Corley
Rocky Top is headed toward rock bottom, a plot twist nobody could have predicted a month ago.
It was the same old story for Tennessee (6-4-3, 1-4-2 SEC) in a 1-0 loss to Arkansas (5-4-4, 3-1-3 SEC) Thursday night at Regal Stadium.
A game largely controlled by the Lady Vols ends up in favor of the Razorbacks due to them being clinical with their opportunities. The loss marks the first time Tennessee has dropped four straight games since 2010, and it couldn’t come at a worse time.
“Really disappointed for our group tonight; they left it out on the field. Thought we had a really dominating performance, gave away a goal early on, but responded really, really well to that,” Tennessee head coach Joe Kirt said. “We have to go grab it; we talked about that. No one’s going to give us anything. You have to score goals if you want to win games.”
It was a brilliant performance by the Lady Vols that will ultimately end up as another number in the loss column. A pretty loss is worth the same amount of points as an ugly loss in the SEC standings, where Tennessee is languishing around the bottom half.
Arkansas began the game on the front foot, keeping Tennessee pinned in the defensive half and not allowing the Lady Vols a moment of rest on the ball. It took just 12 minutes for that pressure to pay off for the Razorbacks in what ended up being the point of difference in the match.
A single through ball out of midfield was able to split Tennessee’s defense wide open, and Arkansas striker Kyndal Ewertz was through on goal. Ewertz made no mistake from just inside the box and dispatched a wonderful finish into the far corner, leaving goalkeeper Cayden Norris no chance.
All the Lady Vols could do was longingly watch the net ripple and wonder if they will ever be able to do the same.
Tennessee has now gone three games without a goal and has scored just once in its last five games. The Lady Vols were soon dumbfounded that they didn’t find the back of the net in the second half.
The energy that has been missing for over a month must have been hiding in a corner of the locker room. Tennessee stepped out onto the field and looked like a completely different team for the final 45 minutes.
“It’s continuing to build on our performances and the trust in what we’re doing with the ball. When we’re disciplined with that, we don’t force the game, we play simply and good things happen. That was pretty evident tonight,” Kirt said. “Keep being us. We have to go be a little bit more of a killer in the box, but keep being us.”
It began straight from kickoff.
Tennessee worked the ball forward to Ines Derrien, who played a give-and-go with Olivia Feagin at the top of the box. Derrien received the ball again in the box and could not have done much differently with her shot that smacked the underside of the crossbar before bouncing down on the wrong side of the goal line.
In the next attacking sequence for the Lady Vols, they had the numbers advantage and Feagin driving forward swiftly with the ball.
She had a streaking Shae O’Rourke on her right side with nothing but space ahead of her. Feagin’s pass was weighted to perfection; O’Rourke almost had too much time. Instead of getting a shot away, she fumbled around with the ball at her feet and Arkansas was able to sweep away the danger.
Tennessee kept piling on the pressure, and Arkansas keeper Keegan Smith was called into action again in the 67th minute. Cora Fry’s cross from the left wing found Sophia Prime in the penalty area, whose flick on goal was denied by the fingertips of Smith.
Arkansas’s defensive heroics continued into the 74th minute. A ball played over the top for O’Rourke was awkwardly cleared out by Smith, who was slow to recover to her goal.
Dakota Brown won the ball out of the air for Tennessee and worked it back around for O’Rourke in the box. Her shot looked destined for goal until being blocked off the line by a set of Razorback defenders.
The resulting corner kick for Tennessee landed on the head of Devin Davis at the back post. Her header was again cleared off the line by an Arkansas defender.
17 shots and zero goals to show for it. Tennessee could not have asked for better opportunities to score, and there’s not much more they could have done when taking those chances.
Someone could hold a Tennessee player’s hand all the way up to the goal line, and with their current luck — they would probably find a way to miss.
Chances for the Razorbacks were few and far between following the opening goal, but they were clinical when they needed to be. A tale that Tennessee will be sick of hearing.
“I don’t know if you need a bigger goal, but she’s close,” Kirt said when asked about O’Rourke’s three shots on target. “We’re all close, and close doesn’t get us much. But we’re there, we’re in a position to do it and now we’ve just got to take it… I don’t care if it’s a toe poke from a yard away or a banger from 30 yards away; you have to keep shooting. Every chance we get we have to keep putting numbers in the box, and be committed to attacking the ball.”
UP NEXT: Three games and nine points remain up for grabs to salvage Tennessee’s once-promising season. The Lady Vols currently sit 12th in the SEC standings, where only the top 12 teams in the conference will qualify for the SEC tournament.
There is no more room left for error.
“We’ve got to start scoring goals; we have to keep the ball out of our own net, too. We’ve got to do both of those things if we want to take something away from these games,” Kirt said. “We’ve got a group that’s certainly capable of doing it; we believe in them to do it; they’ve shown they can do it. It’s hard right now; it’s really hard. It’s emotionally hard, but they’re competing, they’re playing, they’re fighting, doing a lot of things really, really well. Unfortunately, scoring is not one of them right now, and that’s a big part of the game.”
Tennessee will host Kentucky on Sunday, Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. inside Regal Stadium.