Shutouts — it seems to be the theme for the No. 8 Texas A&M soccer team as the Aggies beat Georgia 1-0 at home, putting up yet another zero.
The Aggies (6-2, 2-0 SEC) struck first at the 19-minute mark, after chaos ensued in the box — a cross in led to a blocked shot by sophomore Emily Bates, then senior Sarah Shaw got the rebound and found the back of the net.
Shaw said that head coach G Guerrieri’s preparations for Georgia paid off in a big way for her tonight.
“When we had scouted Georgia, he noticed that the goalie stays on their line most of the time,” Shaw said. “And so I knew to keep it low and try to hit the corners.”
Once A&M took the lead over Georgia (3-5, 0-2 SEC), the defense took care of the rest. The team’s defense has played 468 straight minutes of soccer — spanning five matches total, and dating all the way back to a 2-0 win over Tulsa on Aug. 28 — without conceding a goal.
“It’s something that we’ve been able to hang our hat on — that we know we can defend well,” Guerrieri said. “And we’ve defended well even tonight, with a lot of different looks back there… Every player stepped up and did her job and Dani Rice continues to be absolutely rock solid back there. ”
Tonight’s match saw a few injuries for A&M. Sophomore Kate Hajdu was tripped up going for a ball and went down, but managed to walk off the field, while Bates got tangled up with some defenders after assisting on the goal and had to be helped off the field by training staff. Bates was being evaluated by doctors after the game.
Following the goal in the first half, and accounting for injury of Bates, Guerrieri went with a defensive set up for the rest of the match. He made this switch by going with four defenders to protect the 1-0 lead, instead of three and moved five to the midfield and it paid off.
After suffering a 2-1 loss to Georgia last season on Sept. 27 — almost a year to the date — Junior defender Makayla Paulson said that tonight’s win was payback.
“It’s definitely a nice taste of revenge,” Paulson said. “It was an upsetting loss last year and I think one that was definitely kind of opening up our eyes…we have a much more experienced team now, so I think we were all just ready to come out and just beat them in front of the 12th man and show them who’s the top dog.”
Guerrieri said the team has to be ready for Sunday’s match against UC Riverside.
“They are very skillful,” Guerrieri said. “They are a blue-collar, working class team — they’re a team I really like, which means that they’re gonna be a really hard team for us to play.”
The Aggies return to the pitch on Sunday night, hosting UC Riverside at Ellis Field. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. and will broadcast on the SEC Network +.
