Sooner Women's Soccer Wins Big over Ark-PB 8-1 - Now 3-0 in 2023

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The Oklahoma Sooners Women's Soccer Team played well once again last night in their dominate win of Ark-Pine Bluff 8-1 in their 8 PM match at John Crain Field. Oklahoma took advantage the Lady Lions style of play as Ark-PB did not apply much pressure to the ball and tried to back to load the defensive end of their field. The result was that the Sooners owned possession 59% of the match and Oklahoma possessed the ball on the offensive end of the field for 80 of the their possession time. The Sooners scored 4 goals in each half.

Here is the staff writers article about the win on Thursday night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/8/24 ... -beat-uapb

As the article points out, the Sooners 3-0 start is their best since 2009 when OU opened the year 4-0, and Oklahoma's 18 goals through three games are the most in program history.

"Team played really well, continued to attack the whole game, that's what we talked about at the end of the game," said first-year head coach Matt Mott. "We continued to go at them and use our pressure and how we turned them over we were able to get some good goals."

The starting lineup contained a small tweak. Hadley Murrell moved up into the starting lineup as a MF with Muriel Kroflin moving back to play as a substitute. Here was the starting lineup.

GK - Olivia Ramey
DEF - Cailey England, Andie Wolfe, Avery Stevens
MID - Zoe Parkhurst, Leone Weber, Michelle Pak, Alexis Washington, Hadley Murrell
FWD - Emma Hawkins, Danielle Wolfe

One of the good things about the 8-1 win was that no Sooners played over 68 minutes (England). She was the only player that played over 58 minutes. That provides lost of 'game rest/ to several players in the heat. Eighteen Sooners played between 39 and 58 minutes.

The Sooners dominate play. They had 11 Corner Kicks and totalled 46 shots with 29 shots on goal. The Ark-Pine Bluff GK'ers had 21 saves in the game facing the Sooner attack.

I am impressed with the midfield play by the Sooners as they do a strong job of intercepting the ball off the opponents and owning the ball in the midfield area. The passing from the midfield area to the offensive end of the field was very strong last night with many passes threading the needle between opponents to put the ball at the feet of scorers.

Ark-PB did get on the board first in the 5th minute of play on a free kick from about 45 yards out after a Sooner foul. The kick deep into the goal area was misjudged a bit by the Sooner GK and a final attempt to punch the ball over the crossbar was not successful to allow the goal to the Lady Lions. BUT, the Sooners roared back to score the tying goal in 11 seconds. Directly, off the restart kick, Michelle Pak found Leonie Weber in the middle of the field about 40 yards out. Weber threaded a pass between four defenders to Danielle Wolfe as she had position on her marker and nicely slipped the ball to the left of the onrushing GK to find the net with the slow roller for the Goal. It was a nice play by the Sooners and a nice touch by Wolfe.

Eight minutes later, Danielle Wolfe put Oklahoma ahead on a brillant back-heel pass from Emma Hawkins after she received a spot on pass from Alexis Washington on the right side of the goal in the box. Wolfe buried the ball passed the Lions GK for the 201 lead.

Ten minutes later, the other Wolfe (sisters), Andie Wolf attacked the ball on a Corner Kick from Weber to "head/shoulder" the ball into the goal about 3 feet to the right of the GK. It was an aggressive run by Andie Weber for the 3rd goal.

Three minutes later, Andie Wolfe found Morganne Eikelbarner from about 30-35 yards downfield on a nice pass that had 3 Sooners close to the ball (Eikelbarner, Murrell and Kroflin). Eikelbarner one-touched the goal off her left foot in her first touch of the game. Another nice pass and goal as the Sooners took a 4-1 lead in the 1st half.

It took the Sooners about 15 minutes to get on the board in the 2nd half. Eikelbarner kicked the ball passed a Lady Lions defender who let her hand get in the way and the Sooners received a free kick from the left side of the pitch in just down from the Sooners bench area. Weber centered the free kick into Cailey England on the left side of the goal. After the deflection by the Lions GK, Hadley Murrell was right there deep in the box to quickly kick the ball into the net. It took the Sooners 30 seconds to score again. Emma Hawkins simply deeked the ball around a A-PB defender on the right side at the end line to open up the box for a pass. Hawkins pass was just wide of Weber but found Murrell 18 yards out with an open lane. Murrell played the ball through the open lane into the goal for OU's 6th goal of the game.

Keller Matise scored the first goal of her career in the 74th minute of the match. Kroflin took a free kick after an A-PB foul from in front of the Sooner bench. Kroflin's kick passed over a group of players on both sides and bounced in front of the GK. Matise raced to the ball and managed to get her right foot on the ball just out of the The Sooners 3-0 start is their best since 2009 when OU opened the year 4-0, and Oklahoma's 18 goals through three games are the most in program history.

In the 83rd minute, a nice play by Kellis Brown in the midfield area lead to the Sooners last goal of the game. Brown had control of the ball just on the Sooner defensive end of the field. As Murrell took off down the right side of the pitch, Brown lofted a really nice pass down in front of Murrell. Murrell ran down the spot-on pass and controlled the ball down into the box. With a defender on her hip and the GK rushing her, Murrell tried to push the ball under the GK as she was 'tackled from behind" and as she fell over the GK. The umpire/referee signaled for a penalty kick for the Sooners on the play. Marianne Baltmanis took the PK for Oklahoma. She scooted the ball under the GK on the left side for what I believe is Baltmanis' first Sooner goal of her career.

Several Sooner substitutes played well in the game as did all of the starters. Those who have not been listed above are Ella Pappas (MID), Cassie Clifton (DEF) Leane Commaret (MID-DEF) and Chelsea Wagner (FWD). Sierra Giorgio played the 2nd half as the GK also and had 1 save. There is a great deal of flexibility on the Sooner squad with many players being able to fill spots in multiple roles.

At 3-0 and matching the best start since 2009. the Sooners have a shot to match the 4-0 start of 2009 on Sunday. The Sooners will play in Alabama against Samford. Samford is 1-1-1 in 2023 with a 0-0 tie against Auburn, a win over Jacksonville State 6-0 and loss to Depaul 1-2. Samford was 11-4-7 in 2022. It could be a tough match for the Sooners against Samford in Birmingham in a 1 PM CST start. In the first road game of the season for Oklahoma, their play will need to on point to leave Alabama with a win over Samford.

I think OU has developed very good depth early in the season at each level of the field. There defensive end has improved of late with Stevens, England, A. Wolfe and Clifton playing almost all of the minutes. The midfield with Pak, Parkhurst, Weber, Kroflin leading to Washington, Murrell, Matise getting the ball to Hawkins, D. Wolfe and Eikelbarner seems to be just what the doctor (Coach Matt Mott) wants. With strong GK play, the Sooners should be in almost every match.

The match on Sunday will be on ESPN+. Good luck to the Sooners!

Boomer Sooner!