No. 16 Arkansas soccer beat Kansas State 6-1 to continue its unbeaten run of exhibitions as the Razorbacks look ahead to the new season.
Ava Tankersley’s brace, along with goals from Audrey Shackelford, Anaiyah Robinson, Kyndal Ewertz and Ainsley Erzen, gave Arkansas another convincing victory. The Razorbacks beat Kansas 6-1 in their opening fall exhibition after an unbeaten spring campaign with three wins and a draw.
“There’s a lot to clean up in terms of details,” coach Colby Hale said. “The sets are not set up correctly, communication between our outside back and outside mid, forwards’ early positioning, the press — there’s a lot that definitely needs to be cleaned up.
“Obviously we scored some goals again. We let up another early goal. We’ve got to start quicker. But we built, right? We’ll get a lot out of this game; it was a good game for us.”
Arkansas came from behind for the second time this fall, with Wildcats forward Rylin Rintoul giving the hosts an early lead.
“That was an easy goal that was a mistake on our end,” Hale said. “Our team defending has got to get better. … Now, we’re 10 days in or whatever, so that will get better, but that’s something we’re going to focus on.”
The Razorbacks equalized 14 seconds into the second quarter — they played quarters instead of halves — with Shackelford’s first collegiate goal.
The finish, assisted by Gonzaga transfer Kate Doyle, came when Doyle was in one-on-one and turned to find Shackelford for the finish.
The goal was a combination of two late transfer additions. Shackelford was an early enrollee at Utah before transferring to Arkansas.
“[Shackelford is] feisty, man. She can play,” Hale said. “She has been playing in the midfield some. She can play, but she has a little bit of edge in her. … It’s a hard job for us. You’ve got to cover a lot of ground.”
Three players — Shackelford, Zoe Susi and Lily Boydstun — played in the same midfield role and “did a really nice job,” Hale said.
Ewertz also scored her first collegiate goal, adding Arkansas’ fifth in the third quarter. Robinson, a freshman early enrollee who had a standout spring with a brace against Nebraska and another goal against Kansas on Sunday, continued her goalscoring form.
Between the two fall exhibitions, the Razorbacks have outscored their Sunflower State opponents 11-2 with four goals coming from freshmen.
“A lot of that goes to the leadership of the older players, right? They are helping them along there,” Hale said. “We don’t lower the expectations because you’re young, so we’re pretty hard on some of those kids. The older players do a really nice job of coming up beside them and saying, ‘Hey, this is what you need to do.’”
Defensively, Arkansas held Kansas State without a shot in the third quarter. Hale said the second-half defense was better than the first because the relationships between defenders were better after halftime — “The first half was very individual,” he said.
Arkansas finishes its exhibition schedule against Seminole State College at 7 p.m. Sunday at Razorback Field. The Razorbacks begin the regular season against John Brown at 7 p.m. Thursday at home before traveling to No. 13 Michigan State on Aug. 22.
