The Arkansas State soccer team opened its spring season with a typical, stout 1-0 victory over in-state foe Little Rock Saturday afternoon at the A-State Soccer Complex. 

It takes a special strike to beat Saskia Wagner, Little Rock’s outstanding freshman goalkeeper and one of the best shot stoppers in the league, and that’s exactly what A-State’s Rachel Kutella did when her half volley from outside the box flew into the top left corner in the 31st minute. 

“A lot of it was just being in the right place at the right time,” Kutella said. “It was a good service in by (Hailey) Cloud. They tried heading it out but luckily I was just at the right place. Nothing really went through my head, it just happened really fast.”

Cloud served a free kick from A-State’s own half into the Trojan’s box and Little Rock headed the ball away. However, Kutella ran onto the ball, collected the ball on the bounce, and unleashed a fiery strike past Wagner. 

Kutella said a half volley from outside the box is not usually a shot she’d be super confident in taking on, but her experience in clearing the ball from the backline helped her hit the quick volley. 

Kutella and the A-State backline proved once again why it was the best defense in the Sun Belt Conference during the fall. The young backline of Kutella, Cloud and Lauren Shah, with the experience of Haley Husted sprinkled in, was almost impenetrable. 

“I thought overall it was a really good performance, a typical performance with us,” A-State head coach Brian Dooley said. “You know, defensively solid. I don’t think we gave them a real scoring opportunity. The last couple of times we played them they had a couple of good chances. I think we did a good job there.”

Senior center back Julianna Coates played a solid 48 minutes and was also a big reason the Trojans struggled to produce anything in the attacking third of the field. 

“I thought we did really well,” Kutella said. “We made sure we all did our job and helped our teammates do their job. It helps when Jules comes in. She’s an experienced player and she knows what to do. We’re all talking, we’re all on the same page.”

Injury problems kept Coates to limited minutes in the fall and Dooley said the team will have to see how she recovers after this match to determine how much she might play moving forward. 

“You could tell she was a little more comfortable out there,” Dooley said. “We want to be careful not to overload it but at the same time we want to make sure we’re stretching her minutes. Because when she’s on and she’s at her best, she’s the best.”

With Victoria MacIntosh, A-State’s calm field general at defensive mid, graduating and moving on from the team, Abigail Miller and Hannah Maupin slotted in at defensive mid for a majority of the match. 

Both Maupin and Miller have great experience in the defensive midfielder role and Miller helped pull the strings for A-State against Little Rock. 

“I felt like today was really good,” Miller said. “Our past scrimmages this week had been kind of slow, but today everyone was ready for the game. We didn’t get to play last week and everyone was ready to play. It was fun being back out there and it was just kind of working better than before.”

Miller is a versatile player and spent time in the match at the No. 10 role as well as at defensive mid. 

“I don’t know if there’s necessarily one that I like better,” Miller said. “It’s kind of just the day. If I am kind of more confident in the game then I love being in the attacking position. If I’m more distributing, dribbling, giving other people chances I love being in the defensive role because I can always find the seams.”

Dooley rotated the midfield a lot against the Trojans Saturday. Cloud moved from center back to the midfield at one point while players like Caitlann Potter and Cooper Cowan also got minutes on the pitch. 

Dooley said there were a few mistakes the team made that opponents during the rest of the spring schedule might exploit. 

“I thought on our transition from the defensive line to the midfield line, I thought we were a little bit sloppy,” Dooley said. “We were trying to build through the middle and we got away with it. I thought Abigail Miller did really well in solving some of those problems for us. If we’re not able to get out of trouble against some of these stronger teams that ball comes right back at us.”

With Olivia Smith serving a one game suspension after her red card at the end of the last season in the SBC title game, Darby Stotts found herself in a center attacking mid position during the match while Tara Lea and Sarah Sodoma provided support on the wings. 

“I think we all played really well together,” Miller said. “Dooley was switching a lot of people in, but everybody was working together well and we really shut it down for the other team. We weren’t really letting them get through.”

Lea almost doubled A-State’s lead in the 88th minute when Hailey Furio delicately dinked the ball to Lea in the box. Lea had the keeper beat but an incoming Trojan made a great save off the line to keep the match at a 1-0 scoreline. 

With the clean sheet, senior goalkeeper Megan McClure extended her shutout record at A-State to 22 shutouts all-time. 

The Red Wolves take on Southeastern Conference opponents in their next four games to finish out A-State’s spring schedule. 

A-State is looking to earn an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament and if the Red Wolves pull out results in their next matches, they might just earn a berth. 

A-State heads to Mississippi State March 13 to kick off the first of four games against teams from the SEC. Both Kutella and Miller commented on how important a good start to the spring was with a tough schedule ahead. 

Both freshmen are filled with confidence as the Red Wolves look ahead to the rest of their spring slate.

“Playing a lot has really given me confidence,” Miller said. “Playing against big teams in big games and a lot of minutes has really given me the confidence to be at the place that I am today. It’s been fun in the fall and now going into the spring.”

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