Cincinnati’s penalty kick leads to Miami’s first loss of season

Photo credit: Josh White

Miami experienced its first defeat of the 2017 season Aug. 27 at Gettler Stadium in Ohio. Cincinnati’s senior forward Julie Gavorski scored the game’s only goal on a penalty kick early in the second half of play to ultimately win 1-0. This was only the Hurricanes’ second time facing the Bearcats – their first meeting was in 2013.

In the 60th minute, a controversial call by the referees led to a penalty kick opportunity for the Bearcats. The play in the box between Gavorski and the Hurricanes’ defense was ruled clean, but after a brief discussion between two officials, the call on the field was overturned.

Gavorski was able to capitalize on the scoring opportunity to give Cincinnati the lead. The goal ended Miami redshirt junior goalkeeper Phallon Tullis-Joyce’s streak of more than 300 minutes of shutout soccer. Despite giving up the goal, she finished the game with an impressive six saves – just one under her career high, which she matched on Aug. 25 in the win against Miami University (Ohio).

Miami did not go away easily and found more shots-on-goal after giving up the lead. Possession time became more evenly spread out, but the Canes were unable to score.

“As a team, we need to keep our heads up and focus on the next game because we need to go into ACC play with the best record possible,” senior forward Ronnie Johnson said. “We can look at the film and see what we can learn from our mistakes moving towards the next game.”

Early in the match, the Bearcats dominated the time of possession and number of shots-on-goal by a substantial margin. Much of the action in the first half took place on the Canes’ side of the field, and Tullis-Joyce was forced to make a handful of saves to keep UM in the game.

“We knew it was going to be a physical game,” Coach Mary-Frances Monroe said. “We knew they were going to hit a lot of long balls. I think we did a good job of collecting the first long ball, but we needed to be better at competing for the next.”

The Hurricanes will continue their road trip when they travel to Connecticut, where they will take on the Yale Bulldogs 7 p.m. Friday.