By SPENCER BATES
ST. BONAVENTURE — The St. Bonaventure women’s soccer team’s season at home officially concluded with a 5-1 defeat to Duquesne.
The Bonnies have one game left on their schedule, but it will be away from the Marra Athletic Complex. And while the result was not necessarily what head coach Melissa Sherwood was hoping to see in their home finale, there are significant positives that she hopes will carry over into future seasons at Bona.
Duquesne didn’t take long to put the scoreboard operator to work, finding the back of the net with a quality strike in just the third minute. But, to the Bonnies’ credit, they struck right back just 10 minutes later as Daniela Bruna Ribeiro de Souza found Ekemini Udofa with a smart through ball that caught out the Dukes’ defense, leaving the latter with a simple shot to knot up the scores.
Unfortunately for Bona, its work was undone as Duquesne scored twice within 60 seconds in the 25th minute to gain a brace. Still, the defending was a big positive for Sherwood at the break.
“Stat-wise, we limited them only to six shots in the first half, which is probably the fewest amount of shots that we had against us in a half of soccer so far in the conference,” Sherwood said. “(Duquesne) showed their quality (with their goals). … We just haven’t quite had enough quality and they punished us. There’s still things that we can take out of the game for the players, especially (their ability to) stick to a tactical plan in the first half. In the second half that kind of went out the window.”
After halftime, Duquesne fully took control of the game. Possession was almost exclusively dictated by the Dukes and they bombarded the Bonnies’ defense. However, the visitors found themselves unable to score again until the 81st minute as Bona’s defense did well to repel each and every attack that came their way.
“I think we showed our resilience,” Sherwood said. “When the opponent scores first, we don’t give up, we keep going, we keep trying to play our game, do our things, try to be positive. I think that’s a credit to the team, because regardless of what the scoreboard says, they don’t let their heads go down. All season long, they’ve not done that, they’ve stuck together. But, I think in this day and age, people get shielded from it sometimes, but sometimes your best is not good enough, and that’s life. They’ve given everything and effort, and sometimes it’s not good enough, but you can’t ask for any more.”
An own goal in the 87th minute officially iced the affair.
Sherwood’s first season at St. Bonaventure will officially end with two wins at home. But according to her, what is more important than win totals is the foundation that the team has now laid for future teams to build on.
“You only get one shot at starting over,” Sherwood said. “So it was important for us as a staff, me, as a head coach, that we started with the right people first and with good culture. We put that before talent. And you see it in the tough moments. They’ve never separated and gone off in different directions. They’ve stuck together. … Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’ve taken over programs in much more difficult situations, and the first season is always difficult, but we have to stay on the right track and be confident that we’ll be able to come back stronger and be a team that pushes for playoffs.”
St. Bonaventure will play its final game of the season at Richmond on Oct. 26 at 1:30 p.m.
