Kentucky Men's Soccer Opens Sun Belt Play with 1-0 Loss vs. South Carolina

kentucky-mens-soccer-opens-sun-belt-play-1-1-draw-south-carolina — Photo by UK Athletics

The ‘Cats cannot seem to get over the hump.

No. 24 Kentucky Men’s Soccer faced off against fellow Sun Belt Conference competitor South Carolina on Friday night at The Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex in Lexington. Nicknamed the “Unofficial Southeastern Conference Championship”, it was the conference opener for the Wildcats, which entered the match with a 3-2-0 record.

UK, which began the year ranked No. 3 in the country, went into Friday’s game coming off a 3-2 victory over Lipscomb last week. It was a much-needed momentum boost for a team that has struggled at times early in the schedule, dropping back-to-back games to Wisconsin and No. 7 Louisville. Unfortunately, the ‘Cats did not come out with the same result against the Gamecocks, falling 1-0 in another tough-to-swallow outcome.

Missed opportunities hurt ‘Cats

South Carolina began with possession, but it wasn’t long until Kentucky got the ball back. In the first minute of the match, a foul on the Gamecocks gave the ‘Cats a penalty kick. Senior transfer Aboubacar Camara sent a rocket in the direction of the bottom left corner of the goal but missed and gave up a huge opportunity to get on the board first.

Unlike their three previous matches, Kentucky led the charge in shots between both teams in the first half. The Wildcats had four shots while South Carolina had three, but that did not stop the Gamecocks from getting on the board first at 1-0 — Ethan Dekel Daks would find the back of the net off of a free kick in the 27th minute to give South Carolina the lead.

The rest of the first half was fairly uneventful besides the Gamecock goal. Although the ‘Cats were able to create more shots and had three corners compared to South Carolina’s zero, UK still went into the locker room down at half.

A lot of chances, but no luck

The second half started promising for Kentucky as they were able to get two shots by the 65′, however, they had no luck getting either of the kicks to find the back of the net. Any shot that UK took, the Gamecocks goalkeeper, Ben Alexander, was right there to stop it as the score remained 1-nil heading into the 70′.

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Kentucky’s chances of a comeback were dwindling as the clock was winding down and none of their shots were finding their way into the goal. Multiple corner attempts and free kicks were taken by the Wildcats, but none had any success.

Even though the ‘Cats doubled South Carolina’s shot count at 10-5 for the match, and had five corners compared to their three, the lack of scoring and momentum led to a 1-0 loss for Kentucky.

UK’s defeat tallied their third of the season thus far as they sit at .500 after having played six games.

Coming up for Kentucky is Ohio State on Tuesday, Sept. 19 at 7:00 p.m. in Columbus, OH. The ‘Cats will not play at home again for two weeks until they face the University of Central Florida on Friday, Sept. 29.