The No. 10 Texas A&M soccer team traveled to Lawrence, Kansas to take on the No. 19 Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday and came out with a dominating 5-1 win in front of 541 people at Rock Chalk Park.
The Aggies struggled in their previous game against Butler, losing 2-0 at home, but came out firing on all cylinders against Kansas. The Aggies improved to 5-1-1 with the win over Kansas after their first loss of the year to Butler.
“The difference was we a lot of people playing well.” associate A&M head coach Phil Stephenson told 12thman.com. “We had a lot of people exploiting the space that there is in the Kansas formation. We changed formation and I thought the team did a great job in getting into the spaces and then we attacked well from there.”
The first half was all A&M as the Aggies out shot the Jayhawks nine to three. The Aggies struck first on an 8th minute goal by junior Emily Bates which was assisted by senior Stephanie Malherbe. Then, in the 29th minute, senior Haley Pounds slotted a penalty kick in the net for her second goal of the season to make it 2-0 Aggies.
The second half was again all Aggies as A&M out shot Kansas 11 to five, and outscoring the Jayhawks 3-1. However, the Jayhawks did start the scoring in the first half as junior Grace Hagan headed in a goal with help from her sophomore teammate Elise Reina in the 48th minute. Then, in the 52nd minute, A&M got some help from Kansas as the Jayhawks scored an own goal to make it 3-1 Aggies.
Texas A&M wasn’t quite done yet, as senior McKayla Paulson got in on the scoring action as she placed the ball in the back of the net off of a corner to make it 4-1 in the 56th minute. The Aggies added one more insurance goal as sophomore Cienna Arrieta scored her first goal of the year in the 79th minute to make it 5-1 and finish the scoring.
“I think it was a great response from Friday’s game.” Arrieta told 12thman.com. “We knew we didn’t play to our full potential [on Friday]. We had a great attitude today. We left the Friday game where it was and came out here and gave it our best. I think we showed how well we can play.”
The Aggies will be back in action on Friday as they open SEC play against Auburn at the Auburn Soccer Complex. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.