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ATHENS, Ohio â€" The Ohio women’s soccer team continued Mid-American Conference play at home on Friday (Oct. 16), falling to Eastern Michigan by a final of 3-1.

“Eastern Michigan is a good team that has had a lot of success over the last three or four years and they won the regular season two years ago,” head coach Aaron Rodgers said. “Even though they’re having a down year, they have people who have a lot of experience with success. They don’t want to be where they are so they battled hard and we just didn’t battle as hard as they did.”

Ohio (4-10-0, 2-5-0 MAC) recorded 16 total shot attempts, eight of which were on goal compared to 15 shots by the Eagles (5-8-2, 2-4-1) who recorded nine shots on goal.

Early In the first half, the Eagles struck first to take the lead just two minutes into the game on a shot that was deflected off of an Ohio defender.

Ohio responded in the eighth minute on a goal from the right corner of the box past the keeper from junior midfielder Mollie Whitacre (Perrysburg, Ohio) to mark as her first goal of the season. Teammate and redshirt junior Carly Manso (Vernon Hills, Ill.) led Whitacre to the net and earned an assist on the goal. The Bobcats recorded nine shots in the first half, four of which were on goal.

In goal, freshman Taylor Smith (Uniontown, Ohio) allowed one goal and recorded three saves in the first half.

“I think we have a talented team, so we have the ability to create chances,” Rodgers said. “We scored a really good goal and there’s things that we’ve been working on but at the end of the day, when you’re in conference play this deep and people are fighting for the conference tournament, it comes down to who wants to win more. It’s not necessarily who wants to run faster or run harder, that’s a huge part, but it’s also who’s disciplined enough to take care of their organizational details.”

In the second half, the Eagles scored in the 54^th minute on a ball from in front of the net and shot it past the right of the keeper to give them the 2-1 lead. In the 75^th minute Eastern Michigan scored its third goal on a shot off the cross bar into the goal for the 3-1 victory.

Sophomore midfielder Allie Curry and Manso both led the way for Ohio with four shots while Holly Harris (Batavia, Ohio) and Alexis Milesky (Plain City, Ohio) both recorded two for the Bobcats. Celeste Fushimi-Karns (Dublin, Ohio), Stephanie Rowland (Pewee Valley, Ky.), and Whitacre each added one shot to Ohio’s shot total.

Smith recorded six saves on the game while allowing three goals in her 90 minutes of work.

Ohio will be back in action Sunday (Oct. 18) when they play host Bowling Green at 1 p.m. at Chessa Field.

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