No. 23 Auburn soccer (4-1-4) dropped its first game of the season in its SEC opener, losing on the road to Missouri (4-3-1) 1-0 on Friday night.
“Credit to Mizzou, they outplayed us tonight,” said Auburn head coach Karen Hoppa. “We finally got momentum part of the way through the second half, but we just couldn’t find the back of the net. We will go home and regroup for a tough task in Arkansas.”
Auburn had a tough time getting anything going on offense, as they were outshot by Missouri 12-4 and 8-1 in on-goal shots. Auburn’s first and only shot on target came in the 74th minute by sophomore Sydnie Thibodaux, but it was deflected by Missouri goalkeeper Bella Hollenbach.
Auburn’s Maddie Simpson and Hailey Whitaker tried several times to make something happen for the Tigers but could not seem to find the goal en route to getting blanked for the third time this season. However, the other two games resulted in ties versus West Virginia and Wake Forest.
Maddie Prohaska once again showed why she is one of the most prolific goalkeepers in the league, recording seven saves on eight shots. This was Prohaska’s highest amount of saves in a SEC game since recording eight in her freshman season against Texas A&M.
The lone goal of the game was scored by Missouri’s Kylie Dobbs off a cross from Megan Oduyoye in the 34th minute.
Auburn will be back in action Thursday, Sept. 22, when it travels to Fayetteville to take on No. 14 Arkansas, who also dropped its SEC opener to Mississippi State. That game is set to kick off at 6 p.m. CST.
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Donavan Weaver is a senior at Auburn, majoring in journalism. He is from Brewton, Ala. and started with The Plainsman in fall 2022.
Twitter: @donavanweaver21
