Women's soccer falls in AAC semifinal to USF

[PonyPride]

From SMUMustangs.com:

No. 17 SMU Loses At No. 23 USF In AAC Semifinal

TAMPA, Fla. (SMU) – No. 17 SMU suffered a 2-0 defeat at top-seed and No. 23 USF Thursday night in the American Athletic Conference Championship semifinal. Playing at Corbett Stadium against the Bulls for the second time this season, the Mustangs were unable to repeat the shutout they produced against the league champions during the regular season.

"I thought we played pretty well," SMU head coach Chris Petrucelli stated. "The place we didn't was around the goal. We had three or four pretty good chances to score and we didn't take advantage of them. They had three or four chances to score too, and they took advantage of them."

The American leading scorer and Offensive Player of the Year Sydny Nasello put the Bulls on the scoreboard in the 56th minute with a perfectly placed shot. Dribbling to her right, Nasello took the shot from 25 yards out, clipping the bottom of the crossbar in the left corner for her 11th goal of the season.

"Nasello is the best player in the league, and her quality came through. The first goal was a fantastic goal," explained Petrucelli. "That really changed the game."
The USF goal came less than 10 minutes after Elisabeth Tse rattled the frame on the other side of the field. The SMU freshman's shot rebounded to Courtney Sebazco, but she wasn't able to get enough pace on header to beat the keeper.

Discussing the different bounces off the crossbar, Petrucelli said, "It's close on both ends, and I think it was that close of a game. The game could have gone either way, but credit to South Florida. Credit to our kids as well, they fought hard."

The Bulls added a second goal in the 74th minute when Lucy Roberts headed Nasello's corner kick into the lower left corner, just past the dive of Samantha Estrada.

On Estrada's efforts in goal, Petrucelli stated that, "She played well, and she made a couple of really good saves. I don't think she had any chance on the two they scored."

Estrada finished the game with seven saves on USF's 12 shots. SMU took eight shots, forcing five saves. The Mustangs are now 11-4-2, while USF improved to 12-3-2.

"We've got to get healthy, and we were missing a couple of players tonight that hurt us, but the kids we played played really well. We've got to get healthy, and we hope we are playing next week," concluded Petrucelli.

The NCAA tournament selection show is Monday at 3:30 p.m. CT.