A season plagued with injuries reached its end Sunday afternoon in Pensacola, Florida when Texas A&M soccer dropped its SEC Tournament opener to Georgia, 1-0. The Aggies gave up an opening-half goal in the 19th minute, putting them in a must-score situation. The responsibility to win the game was, again, delegated to the Maroon and White offense.
Like many games this season, the tall task of answering an opponent’s opening goal proved to be too much to overcome. A&M would suffer more of the same issues that had been an Achilles heel in previous games, coming up empty with four shots on goal, despite outshooting the Bulldogs, 14-12.
The loss is the third consecutive game where coach G Guerrieri’s squad was unable to get a ball in the net and the team’s seventh shutout loss this season. The Aggies have gone winless since their Oct. 4 victory over Ole Miss, going 0-4-2 in their last six games.
The game followed a similar blueprint that had been laid out in the Aggies’ previous matchups, with junior midfielder Sydney Becerra leading the charge with four shots and two on goal. However, Becerra never received any lasting help from her teammates, and the season-long struggles lingered throughout the entire contest.
The duty of scoring goals for A&M was made even more difficult due to the efforts of junior goalkeeper Jordan Brown, who blanketed any attempts at evening the score by the Aggies. Brown utilized her 5-foot-11 frame to ward off four shots on goal and register four saves to cruise Georgia into the second round of the SEC Tournament.
Freshman GK Sydney Fuller on the other side of the pitch would endure a much more daunting assignment against the defending SEC Tournament champions when a pass from graduate M Nicole Vernis combined with a left-side shot from graduate forward Dasia Torbert broke the tie in the 19th minute to pull the Bulldogs in front.
“At this time of year, you find a way to win it and keep moving,” Georgia coach Keidane McAlpine said in a press release. “I thought we started the game with great energy. We had a really great shot at the beginning of the game — found the goal and managed the end of the half well. I didn’t think we played our best in the second half, but still managed to have a couple of really good opportunities. All in all, we did well.”
Fuller would log three saves following this blunder, but without any pulse from the offense, the Aggies would remain trailing for the duration of the game despite their shooting edge.
With the season coming to an end, an 8-9-2 record is one of only two sub-.500 campaigns that Guerrieri has boasted in his over three decades as head coach at A&M, the only other losing record coming in 2021 when the Aggies went 7-9-2.
Conference play as a whole was lackluster for the Aggies, going 3-5-2 to squeeze themselves into the tournament, with A&M being shut out six times. With the addition of Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC this year, stakes were high to continue the dominance that A&M had employed for over a decade in the Big 12 Conference. Instead, Guerrieri and Co. went on to lose both games with a combined score of 4-1.
If the Maroon and White can stay healthy through the offseason and continue to add pieces through the portal and recruiting, perhaps the Aggies can revert to their former glory and capture their first SEC Tournament title since 2017.
