With four games remaining in the regular season, the Texas A&M soccer team heads to Kentucky Friday with hopes to register a much-needed win.
Both teams are coming off road losses. A&M fell 2-0 at the hands of No. 8 Auburn, and Kentucky lost 3-0 to Mississippi State.
No. 22 A&M (11-4, 4-3) has Emily Bates back fully healthy. This will be the freshman’s third game back, and she should resume her spot up top as a starting forward. Bates has contributed five goals and five assists this season. Sophomore Haley Pounds leads A&M in scoring with nine goals and has four assists on the year.
Despite being among the middle of the table in the SEC standings, the Aggies rank first in shots, second in goals and third in points in the SEC.
A&M head coach G Guerrieri said the Aggies chances of winning the conference is yet to be determined.
“It’s totally up for grabs, more so than ever since we’ve been in the league,” Guerrieri said. “When we’ve been in the [SEC] it’s usually been Texas A&M and Florida knocking teams off one at a time every week without many breaks, but this year it seems like [there is] a crazy result every weekend.”
Guerrieri said the team has had these crazy results stacked against them.
“We can still win this league,” Guerrieri said. “Obviously some of the craziness needs to continue to happen in other places, and we’ve got to get our feet back under us and get a good result Friday night.”
Kentucky (9-3-3, 3-2-2 SEC) is led by juniors Michaela Dooley and Zoe Swift, who have scored four goals each and have also both assisted four times. Senior Courtney Raetzman leads the team in assists with six and stands fourth overall in the SEC. The Wildcats have had eleven players find the back of the net this season, which is the most in the SEC.
Coach Guerrieri elaborated on how the Aggies have performed on the road this season and how important it is to get results.
“We’ve always been [a good road team],” Guerrieri said. “One of the keys to us winning our last two SEC Championships was our ability to win on the road. I don’t know how many straight wins we had after we knocked off Florida this year, but it was a quite a few. [We suffered] a 2-1 loss [at then No. 16 South Carolina], another 2-1 loss [at Georgia], and then a tough loss against a very physical Auburn team. Those are games that we have to learn from and put behind us as quick as we can.”
A&M has never lost to Kentucky in program history, owning a head-to-head record of 3-0-1 against them.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Friday. The match can be seen on the SEC Network +.
