Florida Soccer Closes Season with 1-0 Loss to Tennessee

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -Florida soccer’s season closed with a 1-0 loss to Tennessee Thursday evening at the Donald R. Dizney Stadium.

Tonight there were two Southeastern Conference matches. Both were originally set for Sept. 26 but Hurricane Helene pushed them to Oct. 30.

Both matches had a SEC storyline as tonight’s win sends Tennessee to the SEC Tournament. A win was the only path for the Lady Vols to get in the SEC Tournament’s 12-team field. The ninth-seeded Lady Vols face eighth-seeded Kentucky in Sunday’s opening round in Pensacola, Fla.

In Columbia, S.C., No. 2 Mississippi State’s 2-1 win at No. 14 South Carolina made the Bulldogs the fifth team to post an undefeated record since the league began awarding a regular-season title in 2000. The other teams with undefeated records include Florida 9-0 in 2000; Florida 11-0 in 2008; South Carolina 11-0 in 2016 and Alabama 10-0 in 2022.

2024 SEC Tournament Schedule<https://www.secsports.com/championships/soccer-championship#schedule>

Wednesday’s Action:
Tennessee took a 1-0 lead into halftime off the only goal of the match in the 43rd minute. The play started with the first corner kick of the match. The ball sent to the middle of the box was headed out by a Gator but deflected off the shoulder of Dakota Brown. Nyla Blue touched the deflection out to Sarah Greiner located inside the upper corner of the box. No Gator could get a clear block on Greiner’s right-footed scoring shot.

Florida goalkeeper Alexa Goldberg kept UT from expanding its lead with her save on Sammi Woods one-touch shot from six yards in the 60th minute.

The Gators best chances came late in the match. Among them were a couple of shots by senior Oakley Rasmussen, with the second coming off Florida’s second consecutive corner kick in the 89th minute.

What the Gators Said:
Reflecting on season
“This whole year, it’s not been for lack of effort, not been for lack of desire and even executing the game plan. We’re missing that final piece. Adam [Godwin, UF Assistant Coach) just said we threw everything in the kitchen sink out there tonight, and I think we did that even a little bit against Oklahoma, and we just couldn’t put the ball in the net.

“This is a really valuable lesson for us as coaches as well as the players, that you can’t always control the results, but what you can’t control is your attitude, your effort. I think there is a level of satisfaction that our players feel because they know they walk off with their tank emptied, knowing they’ve done everything they can. Success is defined a lot of different ways but I think concerning the game within the game, they would have felt that there was a lot of success this season.” – Florida Head Coach Samantha Bohon

On her Florida experience:
“I think it meant the world. It built me as a person, as a soccer player, I think how much we went through as a team, like the 10 that are graduating with me as we’ve been through heck and back together. So I think that just built our character a lot and brought us so close together. The relationships that I take from here, and just like the overall people around the program, people like Connie [Andrews], the athletic trainer, everyone’s just been so great.” – senior defender Madison Young

Records:
Florida: 4-8-6, 1-7-2 SEC
Tennessee: 8-5-4, 3-4-3 SEC

Series Record:
Florida leads 18-16-3

Tennessee (8-5-4, 3-4-3 SEC) vs Florida (4-8-6, 1-7-2 SEC)

Stadium: Donald R. Dizney Stadium (517)

Weather: 76 degrees, partly cloudy, winds E at 8 mph

Goals by Period

Total

Tennessee

Florida

Scoring Summary:

No.

Time