The Lady Buffs kicked off their late season home game run this weekend. It didn’t go as well as they may have hoped when they faced some challenges on Friday against Texas A&M Commerce before taking on Texas Woman’s University on Sunday.
“We usually play better at home so we’re hoping to win the rest of our games now,” Center mid Becky McMullan said.
The team’s Oct. 14 game was their first match since their disappointing 5-0 loss on Oct. 7. They came out fighting but the TAM-Commerce Lions put the first tally on the board 23 minutes into the first half. They followed that up with two more goals during the first half to go into intermission 3-0.
During the second half, WTAMU prevented the Lions from adding to their score, but WT couldn’t get the ball into the opposition’s net even with five shots on goal. The game ended after 90 minutes with a score of 3-0 with the teams each registering nine shots for the game.“You don’t like losing and you certainly don’t like giving up three goals or any,” Head Coach Chad Webb said. “But because of some players with season-ending injuries, we had to experiment some in the first half and it didn’t go very well. We gave up three goals in the first half but I thought the girls fought pretty hard in the second half.”
On Sunday, WT was eager to shake off the last two shutouts they had experienced as they took on Texas Woman’s University. The first half saw lots of attacks but no scoring action, ending the first half at 0-0.
The second half was another matter as Hannah Blakely put WT on the scoreboard only 56 seconds in. A little over four minutes later, Berklee Watson added to the scoreboard again to give WT a 2-0 lead. However, TWU wasn’t ready to hand the game over to the home team. They scored twice in an eight-minute time frame half way through the period and tied the game.
Although both teams attacked the nets mercilessly, there were no more goals scored in regulation, forcing the game to go into sudden death overtime.
Overtime saw both teams having chances at goals but it would be Leslie Briggs, scoring her eighth goal of the season, who ended the game with three minutes left in OT to give the Lady Buffs the 3-2 win.
“On Friday, we put in a lot of effort. I know our team has so much talent and want to win and we showed that today. No matter what we’ll keep fighting,” left outside mid Melanie Shannon said. “I hope everyone keeps fighting and we’ll come up with some more wins for the rest of the season.”
The weekend games took WT’s record to 7-6-1 for the season. WT returns to The Pitch on Oct. 21 to take on Angelo State at 7:30 p.m.
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