On September 24th, Missouri got outplayed early and spent the rest of the night trying to catch up.
Auburn rolled into Columbia and controlled the matchup from the start, using a strong offensive push to hand the black and gold its third straight loss. The visitors found a lot of room down the right side in the opening half, repeatedly stretching Mizzou’s defense and putting pressure on Mia Devrouax, who has moved to the back line this season.
That pressure paid off in the 16th minute. Kelly Gordon beat Devrouax on the flank and delivered a cross to Kennedy Husbands, who finished past Kate Phillips to put Auburn up 1-0.
Five minutes later, Auburn struck again off a corner sequence. After the initial service, the ball was worked back out before finding Gordon, who sent it into the box for Tahirah Turnage-Morales to head in and make it 2-0.
“We give up a couple of what I would consider soft goals against us, and now we’re in the hole and having to try to dig out of it again,” Head Coach Stefanie Golan said. “It’s frustrating because I feel like we have enough to be able to get better results than we’re getting, but we shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Phillips, back in the starting lineup after missing the first two SEC games of the year, kept Missouri from getting buried completely. She finished with a career-high 10 saves, and nine of them came after halftime as Auburn kept coming.
Her first big moment came early, when she denied a 1-on-1 chance in the opening 10 minutes. Golan praised the senior’s composure after the game.
“She’s got a lot of poise to her. You know, I think she had some decisiveness tonight,” Golan said.
“When she came out, and she had to get there and the kid’s right there and stuff, it’s a physical confrontation. I think, you know, she showed some bravery in those moments.”
Phillips kept battling in the second half. In the 55th minute, she made a diving one-handed stop to keep Auburn from stretching the lead to three.
Later, in the 82nd minute, she reacted quickly to shut down a corner chance. Then, in the 86th minute, a free kick led to a flurry in front of goal, and Phillips turned away two more shots in rapid succession.
“There were a couple that were kind of flurries here that didn’t end up in the in the back of the net,” Golan said. “So you know she’s fighting as much as she can to try to keep us in games.”
Missouri didn’t see much going forward in the first 20 minutes of the second half, but it started to create more once there were about 25 minutes left. Lana Adams, who played just eight minutes in the first half, got off a dangerous shot from the edge of the box. Brianna Buels also put a shot on goal while driving down the right side.
Still, the numbers told the story. Mizzou finished with seven shots, and only three were on target. Auburn fired 21 shots.
“There were a couple of moments where we got there, we got the ball cut back and into places. We just have to have our timing of our runs and you know the the final execution needs to be a little bit better.” Golan said.
The loss dropped Missouri to 3-6-1 and left the Tigers 0-3 in SEC play. Next up is a road trip to face ranked South Carolina, where Mizzou will try to get its first conference win.
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