The University of Central Arkansas Bears women’s soccer team faced off against the Lipscomb Bisons on Thursday, October 2nd, at the Bill Stephens track and soccer complex. The Bears, unfortunately, took a hard loss with an end score of 1-2. This loss put their conference record at 1-3 and their overall record at 4-7.

In the first half of the game at the 8:48 minute mark, Lipscomb’s junior midfielder Hailey Johnson scored the first goal of the game. The Bears were unable to even the score in the first half, but in the second half of the game, the Bears were able to nail a penalty kick. Junior midfielder Megan Moudy was able to get a shot in the net at the 61:49 minute mark.

Moudy said, “I think we definitely needed that momentum, just after being down in the first half… getting that goal early in the… second half was really big for us, and I think it just really shifted the momentum for us. We had a lot more of the ball going forward after that, and I think we just really needed that.”

The game remained tied until the last few moments when the Bisons scored once again. Freshman forward Skylar Cole scored the last goal of the game at the 78:16 minute mark.

Head Coach Derek Nichols said that “We continued to battle for the entire 90 minutes… that’s one thing this team has been able to do is continue to push and push and push all the way through.” 

In regard to the score, Nichols said, “[This game] was another one-goal loss, which is hard to take. But the persistence that we had to fight all the way through is good.”

The Bears will have a chance at redemption against the Bisons on Sunday, October 12th, thanks to the ASUN’s new format, where each team plays each other twice: once at home and once away.

In regard to their upcoming rematch, Moudy said, “I think it’s going to be a little bit interesting because we’ve never had to play teams twice in conference, we usually don’t play them until postseason… We’ll look at film and see what we can fix and maybe even change a formation… and just see how we can adjust and get them next week.”

Nichols said, “We’re talking… about maybe changing our system a little… so it’s not the exact same look. So it’s kind of weird this year, playing everybody two times… I think if you can change a few things going into [the second games] then hopefully they can’t prepare as well, so we’re looking at tweaking a few things.”

In regard to his own team, Nichols said, “The big piece [that the Bears are going to focus on going into their rematch] is the mentality of the competitive for the fifty fifties… I think now that we did that second half… We talked about it going in, but it’s just different when you see it.” 

Nichols said that “Knowing [what we now know about Lipscomb’s playing] I think we’ll compete better from the start next time and be ready for… the whole 90 minutes hopefully.”

The UCA women’s soccer team has its next game on Sunday, October 5th, at 1 p.m. against Austin Peay at home. All UCA athletic events can be streamed live on ESPN+.