Hey everyone! I hope you guys had a great week last week! As for the soccer team, we had a great, intense week of practices, where everyone seemed very focused. I think that was definitely one of our best weeks so far, and we looked good going into the weekend!
On Friday, Baylor traveled into Huntsville for the Friday night matchup. Now, let me say one thing about Baylor. They’re tall. Like, REALLY tall. All of them. Except for their coach. He’s short. Am I allowed to say that? And they like to play balls very direct and in the air because, honestly, they can win 90% of them. Simply because they are bigger than everyone else. So that’s what we dealt with on Friday night. We played well, and had great intensity throughout the match. I’m kinda bummed about the goals, because I feel like they were a little soft. I got chipped from about 20 yards out for the second goal because, unlike the entire Baylor roster, I am NOT tall. Bummer. So, we ended up losing 2-0, but we played well and really came out of it feeling good about our performance.
Sunday, we played Grambling State University. For those that don’t know, our old coach, Marcia Oliviera, now coaches there. There are only three of us on the roster who were on the team 4 years ago with her, but we definitely wanted to win and make a statement. In the first 10 minutes of the game, a Grambling player committed a hard foul on one of our players, which resulted in a little bit of a disagreement, I’ll say. The ref quickly pulled out the red card, and sent both players off. On the resulting free kick, Emily Edenstrom controlled the ball out of the air and buried it in the net, so I think the team responded very well.
For the next 80 minutes, both teams played with 10 people. It worked to our advantage, because we were definitely fitter and more mentally tough than they were. It seems like all the Grambling was trying to do was foul us hard and see if they could throw us off our game, and for the first half, it worked. They also had an offsides trap, which got us quite a few times in the first half.
In the second half, we played much better and kept the ball on the ground and moving. Natalie Johnson got a great goal off a cross, putting us up 2-0. We had plenty of shots, but they didn’t hit the target. I’m sure finishing will be a priority in practice this week! We won the game 2-0, but it should have been about 6-0. We got the win and the shutout though, so that was great!
We are going to work hard in practice this week in preparation for our game against Prairie View A&M this Friday at 7 pm at Pritchett Field. I hope everyone can make it out to support us!
Enjoy your week Kats and Kat fans, and make every second count!
-- Jenny Pence
SHSU keeper
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