On a chilly Friday night in Auburn, Alabama the Hofstra Pride hailing from Hempstead, New York came down to play the Tigers in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Hofstra, who posted a 15-1-1 record in their last 17 games coming into today gave Auburn all they could handle in a tough game, but Auburn proved victorious in a 1-0 win.
The first half did not see much action, an uneventful half of soccer with a couple of half chances early and late on for the Tigers. Kristen Dodson looked dangerous early on, but the Hofstra defense looked eager and ready to face any challenge that the Tigers may pose. Karen Hoppa saluted Hofstra’s tough play, “All credit to Hofstra what a great game, I mean it was unfortunate that this game was in the first round.” The half came to a close with a bit of excitement a late breakaway by freshman Rocio Sanders fell short as the Orlando native was unable to capitalize on an ambitious ball played by an Auburn defender.
The winds started to change course for the Tigers in the second half, Hoppa adjusted her line up at half time and those changes proved to be fruitful. After starting the game with a lone striker upfront in Kristen Dodson. Hoppa decided to give Dodson some help late in the first half with the addition of Rocio Sanders and Jessie Gerow to pair with Dodson upfront. This gave Bri Folds the room she needed to create and facilitate the Tigers offense from an attacking midfield position. The link up play between Folds and Dodson was key to the Tigers victory. With 26 minutes left to play in the game Folds connected on a shot outside of the box that curled into the far post to give Auburn a 1-0 lead.
From then on it was a defensive struggle for the Tigers, as Hofstra’s striker Kristin Desmond kept punishing the Tigers finishing with 4 shots in the game but her ability to breakdown defenders was very worrisome at times for the Tigers, Hoppa commented on this, “She was good… She was really good. We told the team we’ve seen enough of her on film to say she was better than most of the big time SEC center forwards we have seen, but honestly she was even more dangerous.” Even with the efforts of Desmond and Hofstra, the Pride still came up short on the night as the Tigers held on to their 1-0 lead to the bitter finish.
Next up in the tournament the Tigers are looking to size up a powerhouse in the Stanford Cardinal. Auburn will be looking to their draw from experiences in games versus Florida, North Carolina and Duke. As a litmus tests versus very good competition as the team tries to knock off a Stanford team who are winners of 16 straight going into their first round NCAA tournament matchup versus Utah Valley University.
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