Texas A&M men’s club soccer held on for a 2-1 win versus All-Army in the second game of the spring season on Wednesday, March 22, at the Penberthy Rec Sports Complex Fields.
After a 2-1 loss to the University of Texas at Austin on March 3, the team was able to hold on to a 2-0 lead against Army until 10:47 left in the second half, when Army scored. The maroon and white held on to prevent a tie game after a final Army shot went wide in the second half, team match coordinator and communication senior Kian Khalilian said. The team is now 1-1 on the season.
Blinn Team sophomore Sebastian Ramirez Isaac scored the first A&M goal off a pass lobbed through with 6:35 remaining in the first half to make the score 1-0 at the break. Ramirez Isaac then assisted business administration sophomore Max Danna with 21:10 left in the second half to make the score 2-0. All-Army scored, ending the game with a 2-1 scoreline in favor of the Aggies.
The last time the Aggies faced All-Army was during the 2022 spring season in a match that ended in a 4-0 loss.
The team did a good job of being patient and taking advantage of their chances, biomechanical engineering senior James Sampson said.
“We weren’t expecting to have a lot of possessions,” Sampson said. “As we settled into the game, we did pretty well staying calm, swinging the ball back and forth until something opened up.”
All-Army is a tough opponent as the team is composed of active-duty Army members, not college students, Khalilian said.
“They’re way bigger than us,” Sampson said. “They’re in the Army, so they’re training more than us. We expected it to be a physical game, but I think we held our own pretty well.”
The Aggies knew to play to their strengths and to keep it simple, mechanical engineering senior Sebastian Blaas said.
“We knew that playing balls in the air, we probably wouldn’t win them,” Blaas said. “We had to keep the ball on the ground and just play our game.”
The team is scheduled to play March 25 against Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Follow the team on Instagram @TAMUMensSoccer.
Eli Meschko is a journalism junior and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.