The Arkansas State soccer team fell to the No. 18 Arkansas Razorbacks 2-1 in a tightly contested match Saturday afternoon at the A-State Soccer Complex. 

The Razorbacks (11-3) jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the 13th minute when Bryana Hunter tapped in a free kick fizzed across the ground into the Red Wolves’ box. 

However, the Red Wolves (11-4-1) didn’t drop their heads and competed with the Razorbacks the entire match. 

“I was pleased with pretty much all facets of the game, they’re a pretty difficult team to play,” Dooley said. “I think we learned a lot about ourselves today and we should be pleased with that.”

A-State didn’t look outmatched physically as the Red Wolves passed the ball well and gave Arkansas trouble throughout the 90 minutes. 

“We didn’t back out of one situation, we challenged every situation that we could and we had our fair share of fouls too,” Dooley said. “The physical nature of this team is really the biggest surprising thing for me. I know we try to play physical but when you play against teams like this and you can still maintain that kind of competitiveness it’s something to appreciate.”

A-State’s all time leading goal scorer Sarah Sodoma added another goal to her career tally in the 42nd minute in an outstanding move from the Red Wolves to tie the match at 1-1. 

Haley Husted collected the ball in the midfield before dropping a pass back to Lauren Shah. Shah found Olivia Smith higher up the pitch with a pass. 

Smith used some nifty footwork to beat her defender and played a beautiful ball down the line. Sodoma sprinted down the line to collect the ball then cut inside from the right side of the field into the box to get the ball on her left foot. 

Sodoma forced an Arkansas defender to dive in for a challenge before she calmly stepped past the lunging Razorback and fired a finish into the bottom left corner of the goal. 

“I think Liv had a really insightful pass that put it through,” Dooley said. “That’s Sarah’s wheelhouse there. She just kind of drew the defender until the defender was out of reach and buried a shot. She hit it perfectly. I think that gave our kids a lot of confidence. As the game went on our possession started to work a little bit better.”

In the 61st minute, the Razorbacks scored their second goal of the match but it should have been disallowed for a hand ball. 

After Arkansas’ Kaelee Van Gundy sent a cross into the box, Anna Podojil tried to control the ball and her first touch bounced off her outstretched hand. After the no call on the hand ball, the ball bounced around the box until it found its way back to Podojil as the reigning SEC Forward of the Year fired the ball into the roof of the net making the game 2-1.

“It’s one of those things where you have to be able to overcome things in a game to get a result,” Dooley said. “Sometimes those things you have to overcome are done because of mistakes from your own team, sometimes from the other team and sometimes decisions that go against you. When you play against a team like this you have to overcome those things.”

Dooley said after the match that although he had not seen film of the situation, it definitely looked like the Razorback player tried to receive the ball and the ball bounced up hitting her outstretched hand. 

“If that was my defender, it would have been called a penalty kick, no doubt and rightfully so,” Dooley said. “In this particular situation we didn’t get the benefit of the call. Now we played through the situation, no one was standing there screaming for it and the kid finished her chance.”

Instead of the Red Wolves’ normal 4-2-3-1,  A-State started in a 4-4-2 formation to compete with Arkansas’ 3-4-3 across the middle of the pitch. 

The 4-4-2 also put two forwards against the Razorbacks’ back three giving Sodoma more room to work. 

Shah, usually an outside back, actually played in the midfield during the match and commanded the position with her usual tenacity. The freshman put in hard tackles and looked confident with her passes.

“I played midfield today and basically that was for me to just get up and get more involved in the play,” Shah said. “If I were to get the ball, I would be able to make my bending balls into Sarah or get more of a foot on the ball and make those runs closer to the goal.”

Shah credits her teammates for coaching her throughout the match and it helped her adjust to her new position against Arkansas. 

“Haley Husted, I love how she’s in the back and just coaches me up,” Shah said. “I think that just gives me a lot more confidence and to play and have more confidence in myself so I think I just feed from the confidence of my teammates.”

In the center of the park for A-State, Abigail Miller and Hannah Maupin looked calm and helped settle the game at times for the Red Wolves. Maupin’s ability to calmly distribute the ball was on full display. 

“I love playing with Gail,” Maupin said. “We always play off each other pretty well I think. She’ll step, I’ll cover. We just kind of know without saying where the other’s going to be. Even being a freshman she’s really strong in the midfield so it’s been fun playing with her this year.”

Maupin said the Razorbacks were good at possessing the ball and playing with tempo so pressing and trying to hold them off were some of the biggest challenges in the middle of the field against Arkansas. 

“I think we were pretty aggressive in the midfield today,” Maupin said. “We all played well with each other, we were shifting, we’ve been working on that in practice this week. Definitely a change in formation so it’s been a transition I guess you could say but I think we did well.”

Dooley started center back Julianna Coates in a matchup where the senior played against players she knew from her home state of Oklahoma. 

While Coates has seen less playing time this past season than she usually would due to injury problems, Dooley said during the week in practice he, along with his coaches, realized Coates just had to start. 

“We knew she was going to be motivated to play the game because a lot of those kids are kids she played high school and club ball with,” Dooley said. “All week we knew there was going to be a lot of play into the box. She was just excelling in everything that we did, winning the headers and clearing the ball out. It was really an easy decision (for her to start). 

Coates played 70 minutes against the Razorbacks. 

“She’s a warrior and she’s there for her teammates,” Dooley said. “It’s really fun to watch her in that kind of setting, the leadership that she shows and the organization and how the young ones just kind of fall in under her wing. It was a really good performance.”

Toward the end of the match the Red Wolves did switch into a 3-4-3 formation in an attempt to score the tying goal. 

“You know, you don’t play to lose 2-1,” Dooley said. “I thought our kids really felt that, ‘Hey we’re going for it, we’re going for it.’ And the effort was there for the 90 minutes. They made a couple of changes to try to compensate for what we were doing which was really nice to see. A good team that’s coached well making necessary adjustments for the things you’re trying to do.”

A-State goalkeeper Megan McClure even traveled up the field in the last few minutes and got in the box during an A-State corner. McClure, who has scored on a corner before at a spring game in Memphis a couple of years ago, couldn’t quite score on the corner against Arkansas.

“She loves getting up there,” Dooley said. “After the game I said, ‘You know we should do that all the time,’ and she was like, ‘I can’t sprint that many times in a game.’”

The crowd on hand for the extremely rare and soon to be more common Arkansas State versus Arkansas matchup was huge. Dooley said although he didn’t have the official count, he bet it was the biggest crowd ever at an A-State soccer match. 

“Whenever we got done with the National Anthem, I turned around and I looked and I was just in awe,” Shah said. “I think I turned to Tara or Keelyn and I was like, ‘Wow, do you see how many people are here? This is amazing.’”

A-State’s final two games of the regular spring season are on the road at Ole Miss on April 2 and on the road at Arkansas April 10. 

“We still have hope, we still have hope to get into the NCAA tournament,” Dooley said. “So, we’ll keep pushing.”

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