The Aggies recorded their 18th win of the season in a 1-0 win over The Ladyjacks in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Division I Womens Soccer Championship held at Ellis Field on Friday.
Annie Kunz scored the only goal of the match in the 29th minute to put The Aggies into the next round where they will play the winner of the match between Ohio State and Oakland. This game will be played in Tallahassee, Fl on Friday.
The game started off with SFA putting A&M on the back foot. They had a couple of chances in the first few minutes to take the lead. In the seventh minute, Zuri Prince fired wide of the post when she had a chance with just an open net to aim for.
However, in the 29th minute, against the run of play, Lyndsey Gnatzig crossed the ball from the left wing to Bianca Bronson. She headed the ball down to Annie Kunz who put the ball into the back of the net from six yards out.
The first seven or eight minutes they were the dominant team out there head coach G Guerrieri said. At one point we had been outshot five to nothing, but once we started to put some stuff together and connect on a few passes, especially with the goal.
The Aggies then came close to adding a second when Leigh Edwards fired a shot, but it hit the crossbar.
During the second half, in the 49th minute Zuri Prince picked up a yellow card for a bad foul. She also came close to another yellow card when her tackle on Jackie Tondl injured the defender. She was then replaced by Janae Cousineau.
The second half had chances for both the teams. Annie Kunz came close to putting the Aggies into the lead with a shot that hit the post. Melissa Gaudet came close to equalizing the score for SFA but the chance was saved by the Aggies keeper, Jordan Day.
A physical battle ensued throughout the entire second half with SFA committing 13 fouls, nine of them in the second half and A&M committing nine fouls, five of them in the second half. But the Aggies were able to hold on to their lead, keeping a clean sheet in the process and ensuring their progress into the next round.
We’re not a seeded team. If we end up playing against Ohio State, it is kind of a situation where we are playing with the house’s money, to an extent. We will be an underdog and we haven’t been an underdog all season long. We will go into it with a little bit of that mentality that a higher seeded team is probably the team that is expected to win and we’ll try to prove that wrong coach Guerrieri said. We’re excited that we will have probably at least Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to train before we fly out to Tallahassee. We’ll get a few more of those days in here and then get ready for what we know is going to be a tough road but a road that we are excited about.