VICKSBURG, Miss.—
Paige Baumgartner found the back of the net for the first time this season, but a flurry of goals in the first half from Alcorn State sent the Braves to a 3-1 victory on Thursday at Key City Park.
NSU (0-5) could not overcome a mistake-filled first half that saw the home team score on a penalty kick and off a turnover near the Demons net.
"Overall, it was a really disappointing match," head coach
Ian Brophy said. "We didn't play well at all and in the first half, it was the same story as the rest of the season with the self-inflicted wounds. We found ourselves down 3-0 and had to claw our way back.
"We had a goal late in the first half and in the second half we had all the possession, and we didn't find the goal and didn't test the goalkeeper enough and ended up losing a winnable match."
The game was the final one of five straight to begin the regular season on the road.
Alcorn (2-3) scored the first three goals of the match with two of them coming off the foot of Grace Ambrose, one of the top goal scorers in the nation.
In the 10th minute, Ambrose scored her first and added a second in the 33rd minute after she intercepted a pass near the NSU box and beat a scrambling
Saki Tsuchiya to double the Braves lead.
Ambrose has six goals this season, one of the top marks in the nation.
Alcorn added a third off the foot of Annick Zouma on a penalty kick in the 38th minute following a foul in the box, the sixth time the opponent has converted a penalty kick this season.
In addition to Ambrose's six, Zouma found the back of the net for the fourth time, forming one of the top goal-scoring tandems in the country.
Baumgartner found the back of the net in the 44th minute on a shot from the left side of the box off a pass from
Bonnie Miller to give the Demons some momentum going into the break.
"It was a great goal and great finish," Brophy said. "It felt like we could have really used that to roll into the second half. I thought we played a lot better at the end of the first into the second half, but if we play like that and are that dominant, we need to turn that into goals."
NSU tried to carry on that momentum in the second half and dominated possession in the final 45 minutes, but despite winning 12-6 in shots in the second half, each team recorded three shots on frame.
Baumgartner led the team with four shot attempts, including the goal. In perhaps her best game since coming over from South Florida as a transfer,
Maliya Maldonado recorded three shot attempts.
"In a night where we didn't have many positive performances, I thought Maliya played really well," Brophy said. "Her performance is why we controlled the midfield in the second half and felt like I couldn't take her out of the game. If she can put her shots on frame, she'll score a lot of goals this year."
The shots were even overall at 15 each, but 10 of Alcorn's were on net compared to five of NSU's.
Of the 15 for the Braves, Ambrose (6) and Zouma (4) combined for 10 of them.
Coming in at halftime in net,
Audrey Marfia collected a pair of saves to keep the Braves off the board.
Now NSU now heads home for the first time this season when it welcomes Louisiana Tech to the Demon Soccer Complex on Sunday.
"It will be good to be back home," Brophy said. "We're tired of the travel and the road. We're excited to go back home to some hospitality and extend the same to the other teams that haven't done that for us."
