Wildcats get first SEC road win of Ian Carry era
STARKVILLE, Miss. – Freshman Miranda Jimenez scored the only goal of Sunday’s match at Mississippi State in the 58th minute on Sunday as the Kentucky Wildcats picked up three invaluable road points with a 1-0 clean sheet win.
“Overall, our hard work and blue-collar performance earned us a result against a team that is hard to break down,” Ian Carry said. “It took a special moment by Miranda to unlock their defense and a blue-collared defensive performance to get us the three points on the road and that helped up walk away with a win.”
Jimenez’s goal came from a wide run off the speedy feet of Foster Ignoffo who got endline and served the middle of the box. The ball was touched inside the six and redirected by Sophie Babo and then hammered home to the weak side by Jimenez for her second goal of the season.
Kentucky will return to action on Thursday night at 7 p.m. ET live on the SEC Network against Missouri from the Bell Soccer Complex in Lexington. The game will be called by 2015 FIFA World Cup announcers Jenn Hildreth (pxp) and Heather Mitts (color).
The Wildcats then were able to hunker down defensively and not allow a clear scoring chance for the Bulldogs in the remaining half hour of the match as Danielle Hayden, Kelly Novak and Payton Atkins held down the ship along the back.
Sunday’s win is Kentucky’s first Southeastern Conference road clean sheet since the 2015 season when UK shutout Alabama 1-0 on Sept. 18, 2017.
With the three points, UK is now on the good side of the Orange Beach bubble sitting on six points through the first six league matches. Kentucky has already equaled its SEC point total from 2016 just six matches into the 2017 season under head coach Ian Carry and his assistants, Jason Goodson and Melissa Charloe.
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