March 28, 2010
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - The Texas A&M soccer team blanked Baylor, 1-0, and drew with Marquette, 2-2, Saturday in a spring round-robin event at the Aggie Soccer Stadium. The Aggies extended their unbeaten record to 7-0-1.
In A&M's first match of the day, the team outshot the Bears, 15-2, but did not score the game-winning goal until the 66th minute of the 70-minute match.
The Aggie goal came off of a corner kick served by sophomore Carly Wohlers to BU's far post, where freshman Mary Grace Schmidt won the aerial battle, but her header was knocked down by the Baylor goalkeeper just short of the goal line. Junior Alyssa Mautz then pounced on the bouncing ball three yards from goal and hammered it into the net.
A&M goalkeeper Sarah Pierson was only called upon to make two saves to secure the shutout win.
Against the Golden Eagles, the Aggies came back from a two-goal, first-half deficit to tie Marquette, 2-2.
MU got on the scoreboard first in the eighth minute on an Aggie own goal. The team then went up 2-0 in the 18th minute, heading in a corner kick. Following that goal, A&M made four substitutions and the nature of the game changed.
In the 31st minute, A&M put their first tally on the scoreboard when sophomore defender Christina Navalta. From Carrollton, Texas, Navalta dribbled to the corner of the penalty area and found sophomore forward Katie Hamilton in the center of the field, 25 yards from goal. Hamilton collected the pass with one touch and buried a low-driven shot into the corner of the Marquette goal with her second touch.
Just eight seconds prior to halftime, it looked like A&M would strike again when sophomore forward Kat Armstrong stole the ball off an MU defender and hit a quick shot that missed the far corner by inches.
The teams went into the 15-minute break with a score of 2-1 in favor of Marquette.
In the second period, both teams played attractive attacking soccer and created opportunities to score, but it was A&M who scored the only goal of the half.
Mautz collected a loose ball on the Aggies' right flank about 35 yards to goal and passed a ball toward the feet of Navalta, who was located in the Golden Eagles' defense, 22 yards from goal. Navalta let the ball run through her legs and directly into the path of an overlapping Amber Gnatzig. The redshirt senior collected the pass and drilled it into the lower-left corner of the goal to tie the 80-minute match.
"I thought it was a good day of soccer," commented A&M head coach G Guerrieri. "It was great to play two competitive matches against teams as diverse as Marquette and Baylor. We're pretty happy with the way we were able to solve some difficult matchups and solve problems posed by two well-coached teams.
"Christina Navalta each had good performances today and everyone was able to gain some valuable game experience."
In the opening match of the day, Marquette defeated Baylor 1-0 by heading in a second-half corner kick.
Texas A&M hosts BYU and Stephen F. Austin this Friday, April 2. BYU plays SFA at 1 p.m. before the Aggies face SFA at 3:30 p.m. and BYU at 6 p.m. Admission is free to the public for all games this spring.