Health senior forward Brooke Brown led the Texas A&M women’s club soccer team to a 2-1 win on Sunday against Texas at the Penberthy Rec Sports Complex.

The Aggies were 2-0 for the season going into the match after a forfeit against SMU and a win over Baylor. The Maroon and White began training back in mid-August, with practice held three times a week.

The club competes in Region IV of the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association and has four regular season games remaining on the 2024 schedule. In the spring of 2023, the Aggies won the Texas Collegiate Soccer Championship with a 5-0 defeat of TCU.

In the spring, the team played the Longhorns and collected a 1-0 win. Coach Devonn Mendoza said the players knew how much effort the rematch would take.

“It’s always a dogfight with us and Texas,” Mendoza said.

The Aggies ran a 4-4-2 formation, and the first half was back and forth with balls kicked out of bounds or secured by goalkeepers. The silence was broken by Brown’s goal with only seven minutes left on the first-half clock.

Despite the pressure of the rivalry game and going up one score at the half, co-head coach Godswill Peter said he told the players at halftime to “play our game.”

A&M’s energy shifted at the start of the second half with a better attack mentality, and its competitiveness began to shine through. Brown struck again near the middle of the second half, kicking the ball right past a diving Texas goalkeeper.

Brown, 23, said she’s been a part of the soccer world since she was four years old. She has always played club soccer but said there was a time when she lost her love of the game. After years of constant play, she said she got tired of traveling and missing out on major life events due to the intensity of her club soccer team.

While she received plenty of interest to play at other colleges, Brown said she knew she wanted to be at A&M. She also heard about A&M’s club soccer team and decided she wanted to be involved. It’s where she said she fell back in love with the sport.

“Joining the club team has been the best decision of my life,” Brown said. “I’m a third-generation Aggie, so I always knew I was going to come here … I can’t do anything without my team.”

A&M will host Texas Tech on Sunday at 10 a.m. at the Penberthy Rec Sports Complex.

Kelsey Keierleber is a journalism senior and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.