Texas A&M
Baylor
No. 10 Soccer Shuts Down Bears
Oct 08, 2010 | Soccer
Oct. 8, 2010
COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Texas A&M junior Bri Young and senior Alyssa Mautz each scored goals to propel the No. 10 Aggie soccer team to a dominating 2-0 shutout of Baylor on Friday night at the Aggie Soccer Stadium.
Young (Castle Pines North, Colo.) powered in her fourth goal of the season in the 13th minute as she fired a free kick from 45 yards that deflected off the bottom of the crossbar, off the hand of goalkeeper Courtney Seelhorst and into the goal to get the Aggies out to a quick 1-0 lead.
Mautz (O'Fallon, Mo.) followed at the 50-minute mark with her 10th score of the year. At the top of the six-yard box, she flicked on a line-drive free kick across the face of the goal that Seelhorst had no chance to stop. Young provided the serve from directly in front of the Aggie bench on the right flank.
"What a good job by Bri tonight to put two balls in great positions," said head coach G Guerrieri. "Their keeper did a great job in the first half and it took some good goals by us to score. Baylor's system is a tough one to play against. It's nice that we have the ability to score on restarts. At halftime, we talked about wanting this be a good workman-like effort and in the end it was."
With the victory, the Aggies (10-3, 3-1 Big 12) have won three straight and improved to 13-4-1 all-time against the Bears, who dropped to 9-4-1 and 2-3 in conference play.
With the ball at their feet nearly the entire match, the Aggies tested Seelhorst from the opening kickoff and nearly got on the scoreboard just 10 minutes in. From the end line, junior Merritt Mathias (Birmingham, Ala.) threaded a serve in to senior Amber Gnatzig. Her one-touch caused Seelhorst to make a diving stop. The Aggies forced Seelhorst to make six saves in the match.
Senior goalkeeper Kelly Dyer (Germantown, Tenn.) warranted her second straight clean sheet and third shutout of the season as she made four saves between the posts.
The Aggie defense limited Baylor to just one first-half shot and five total shots in the match.
"Defensively, Bri and Mary (Grace Schmidt) are doing a really good job anchoring our backline," Guerrieri said. "They are both great soccer players. Both have played in the midfield, both can be creative, and both are good leaders."
"We've finally figured it out and we know how each other plays," added Young. "We've been working on shape all week during practice and it really showed our hard work that nothing got through us today."
A&M dominated the game and outshot the Bears by a 19-5 count with an 8-4 advantage in shots on goal. Corner kicks were even at four apiece.
Young put up career-high numbers with eight shots and five shots on goal while junior Merritt Mathias added four shots. No Baylor player took more than a single shot.
A&M returns to the Aggie Soccer Stadium on Sunday for a 1:30 p.m. match against Texas Tech.
