When Florida freshman forward Erika Tymrak was fouled by Kentucky’s Jenna Goblirsch with 45 seconds left in the deadlocked first overtime of Friday night’s Southeastern Conference women’s soccer game at Pressly Stadium, she found Lindsay Thompson in the crowd of Gators players.
“Linz, take it,” Tymrak told the sophomore midfielder.
The game, which had been locked at 1-1 since the 56th minute, came down to one kick. Thompson looked down at the ball so that Kentucky keeper Sydney Hiance wouldn’t see where she was going to kick it.
Thompson kicked it hard and to her right. Hiance hardly moved and the No. 10 Gators (7-3, 1-0 SEC) came away with their first SEC triumph of the season, a 2-1 victory over the Wildcats.
Thompson talked about the pressure of the kick after the game.
“A golden goal penalty kick is probably the most pressure situation you’ll ever be in, and I was just focusing on the ball,” Thompson said. “I just tried to put it in a place where she couldn’t get it.”
The foul was fortunate timing for the Gators, who battled with the referees throughout most of the game. Head coach Becky Burleigh was given a yellow card after a verbal bout with officials in the second half.
“I’m not allowed to comment on the officiating … I think it was very fitting that it ended on a penalty kick,” said Burleigh.
It was fitting too that for the first time this season, the Gators practiced penalty kicks before the game. Burleigh grades the players and determined that Thompson had been shooting them the best, but she allows the players to pick the shooter.
Thompson had earlier defended Tymrak on a no-call against her in the Kentucky box. When Tymrak remained on the ground complaining about the foul, Thompson said that referee Shane Moody was yelling at her, and so she yelled back.
“Sometimes the ref just isn’t going our way,” she said. “I felt like it was a disrespectful thing for him to be yelling at her when she felt like she got fouled and might have even been injured. I felt like he was yelling at her in a pretty malicious way, and I just didn’t appreciate that.”
Despite the officiating, Burleigh was happy with the win, saying that the three points the Gators get for winning an SEC game was all they sought Friday. She wasn’t happy that it took the Gators an overtime to earn it.
“I think the lesson we have to learn from this game is that you have to put teams away,” she said. “If you let teams hang around, it just becomes more of an issue, and you put yourself in a dangerous situation.”
The Gators scored early in the game on another goal from Thompson in the 13th minute. After that, Thompson felt that the team loosened up.
“It’s hard,” she said. “We’ll work on it in practice. I think it’s just our mentality. Once we scored, we just kind of let down a little bit.”
Kentucky’s Giuleana Lopez, who famously infuriated the Gators last season in Lexington by doing a gator chomp after a goal, scored in the 53rd minute to even the game.
Kentucky only had four shots on goal, but most of them were on target. In the 94th minute, 6-foot-3 Kentucky forward Laura Novikoff shot what looked like a certain golden goal before Florida keeper Katie Fraine leaped hard to her left and handled the shot.
“It felt really good to be able to help my team out like that, especially in overtime when it’s do or die,” Fraine said. “I just remember seeing her turn and thinking she was going to shoot. It’s just like everything that I practice all year: My feet went, my arms extended. I didn’t really have to think about it, it just kind of happened.”
Fraine was open about her feelings for Kentucky earlier in the week. She feels like Florida has a target on its back because of its history of success and state-of-the-art facilities.
She didn’t back down from her position after the game.
“We’ve got a target on our backs, and you just saw it,” Fraine said. “Kentucky wanted to beat us. They put up a great fight, I think. It was great to start off (SEC) play with a win against a team that has come so far since last year.”
Last season, the Gators didn’t lose a game in SEC play. Fraine said it felt good to start off the same way this season.
“We’re 1-0. That’s how I look at it. The beginning part of the season is over, and now we start a brand new season of SEC play. It’s exciting. We’re 1-0 and hopefully we can get 10 more.”