By Aidan Corley
This all must be feeling like some cruel joke for the Lady Vols. If someone was offered a cash prize picking between a winning lottery ticket and Tennessee putting a scoring chance in the back of the net, their fingers would be in pain after going through so many scratch-offs.
Tennessee (6-4-4, 1-4-3 SEC) was able to stop the bleeding of a four-game losing streak in a 0-0 draw to Kentucky (7-5-3, 3-2-3 SEC) Sunday afternoon in Regal Stadium. The draw felt more like a band-aid on the bullet wound that is the current SEC standings, where Tennessee sits 12th: the cut line to qualify for the SEC tournament.
The Lady Vols have now failed to score in four consecutive games and have recorded just one goal in their last six games.
Tennessee once again played phenomenally in a game where all three points should have stayed in Knoxville.
“Stingy Kentucky team made it really difficult for us, but we still had enough to win the game. Once again, we have to score goals if we want to win a game, and we didn’t do that today,” Tennessee head coach Joe Kirt said. “The team’s effort, competitiveness, willingness to defend… did a tremendous job of that, but ultimately the game comes down to scoring goals if you want to win games.”
Kentucky couldn’t get near Tennessee for most of the game. It was 11 Lady Vols playing against 11 traffic cones moving the ball with a swagger as if they had won four games on the bounce rather than lost. The final product, however, was all too familiar from a Tennessee perspective as they couldn’t have asked for better chances to score at the end of each half that wound up finding a way into the hands of a goalkeeper.
It was a confident start for the Lady Vols as they were able to control the possession battle and keep the ball in their attacking half for a large portion of the first 45 minutes. Tennessee found lots of joy through Ayva Jordan down the left side of the field. Her link-up with Cora Fry in the 15th minute provided the game’s first shot that ended up not troubling Kentucky goalkeeper Megan Holland.
Half chances like Fry’s would be the story of the first half. A Devin Davis header safely into the hands of Holland, Dakota Brown firing high following a blocked Ines Derrien shot. Kentucky was limited to getting out on the counterattack, but every break was snuffed out by Tennessee with relative ease.
Time stood still on the brink of halftime.
Shae O’Rourke drove to the byline and lofted in a ball to the back post where Emerson Moore was all alone. Holland was scrambling back to get in position for Kentucky; Moore had a tap-in. Was this the moment for the Lady Vols that had been eluding them for nearly a month?
A heroic effort from Holland in goal denied it. A full-stretch save knocked it out for a corner. Tennessee, yet again, had to walk back to the locker room scoreless.
Kentucky found a way to up the pressure in the second half, but overall it was more of the same from Tennessee. The Lady Vols were having their way with the Wildcats, but failed to create any clear-cut opportunities to give themselves a desperately needed lead.
The 87th minute embodied Tennessee’s recent struggles. Once again it was O’Rourke getting her head down and putting in a cross. This time the ball bounced out kindly toward Kameran Bluette just inside the box. She had time to pick a corner and place it wherever she wanted. Two months ago, Bluette buried a shot from a similar position against Milwaukee. Today, Bluette’s shot was tame and straight into the hands of Kentucky’s Holland.
Tennessee did everything right against Kentucky up until the final moments and were forced to settle for a point.
“We had service; could we have been a little bit more accurate at times? Maybe. Great chance at the back post with Emerson; it is margins,” Kirt said. “The chances are there; we’ve got to take them. Good service on set pieces, have to compete in there. There’s a mentality to scoring goals, and we haven’t got there.”
Tennessee’s backline stood out on the afternoon, keeping a clean sheet for the first time in four games and holding Kentucky to zero shots in the first half. A calm, composed, and resilient performance in such a critical game will be something to build on for the remainder of the season.
“We’ve limited chances for really every team we’ve played in the last four or five games, but to get a shutout it’s a good thing. They earned it today; it was a team shutout,” Kirt said.
UP NEXT: Tennessee will travel to Tuscaloosa to play No. 8 Alabama on Friday, Oct. 23, before returning home to host Oklahoma for the final regular season game on Sunday, Nov. 1.