Author: Joe Alexander

Sunday night’s game came down to two moments – one at each end of the field. Both went UTSA’s way.

The Roadrunners’ Zoe May scored Sunday night’s only goal on a penalty kick in the 81st minute. May’s goal was set up when UTSA’s Brooke Viccars went on the attack and was fouled.

UTSA goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler provided a dramatic conclusion to the game when she stopped a Lamar penalty kick with exactly one second left on the game clock.

The plays added up to UTSA women’s soccer’s 1-0 victory over Lamar at Park West Athletics Complex.

UTSA (2-1-1) now has a two-game win streak in the still young season. The Roadrunner have recorded three shutouts and allowed only one goal in their four games.

Next on the UTSA schedule is the Roadrunners’ first two road games of the season. UTSA plays Colorado State in Fort Collins on Thursday. UTSA plays Colorado College in Colorado Springs on Sunday.

From Zoe May

On the penalty kick

“Honestly there I just went with my gut and where I wanted to put it,” the senior midfielder from Canada said. “Right now I’m 2-for-2 in games (on penalty kicks). In my freshmen year when I was at Memphis, in the semifinals of the conference I had to take one. That was pretty high pressure.

On the UTSA defense

“I think our defense is a really strong unit. I think that’s one of the strong parts of our game. We work really hard. We’re a gritty team. I think that showed tonight and in all the clean sheets we’ve been getting.”

From Jasmine Kessler

“I’m not going to let this ruin my clean sheet so I just had to lock in, listen to my coaches, rely on my previous training and just do my best to read the player. Ultimately I went the right way and made the save.

“I’m a veteran keeper. I’m a veteran player on the team. I’m one of the few players who has been on this team for three years. I’ve been through out ups and our downs. I’ve seen a lot of players come and go. I think this team is at the best point that we have been since I’ve been here.”

UTSA women’s soccer is at home today at 7 p.m. at Park West Athletics Complex against Lamar.

UTSA (1-1-1) is coming off a 3-0 victory over St. Mary’s on Thursday. Aaliyaiah Durden and Brookly Bailey both scored their first goal in a UTSA uniform The Roadrunners, anchored by goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler, have allowed only one goal in three games.

Lamar (0-2) is coming off a 1-0 road loss to Texas A&M and lost on the road to Louisiana 4-1 in the Cardinals’ season opener.

Tonight’s game will be streamed on ESPN+.

From UTSA coach Derek Pittman:

After the victory over St. Mary’s

“That’s something that we can definitely continue to build on. First off all first goal off a set piece for AD (Durden) to get on the end of it was fantastic.

“The second goal was exactly what we were looking for. That type of play. That type of quality back-post service. BB (Bailey) rises up and it’s a fantastic goal.

“There’s definitely a lot for us to continue cleaning up. Obviously there are signs of us moving in the right direction.

“We got to rest a lot of players. We got to play a lot of young kids. We got some people a lot more minutes even tonight than maybe they got even during some of our exhibition games. It was nice to see different players step up. I thought there were a lot of positives from some of the young freshmen.

“Kam Watson was terrific up top. I thought Kennedy Reed steps in in the back line and did a very good job for us. Maria Reyes, once she settled down, calmed down was much, much better. Those are just three and I could highlight even more. Even getting Brilynn Mueller her first minutes in goal gives us a lot of confidence that we’ve got a good goalkeeper room that’s got a lot of competition going on in there.

“So it was exactly what we hoped it would be was to build some confidence, play some quality football and get a victory in front of a great crowd tonight.”

UTSA recorded its second shutout of the season with a 3-0 victory over St. Mary’s on Thursday at Park West Athletics Complex.

UTSA faced what the rankings say is the biggest challenge of its 2025 women’s soccer season and nearly claimed a scoreless tie.

Ninth-ranked TCU beat UTSA 1-0 on Sunday night at Park West Athletics Complex.

The Frogs’ Cameron Patton scored the only goal of the night in the 81st minute, coming off assists from Grace Vest and Allyson Brown.

Goaltenders Jasmine Kessler of UTSA and Olivia Geller of TCU made four saves each to keep things tied 0-0 going into the final 10 minutes of the game.

UTSA’s Zoe May, Michelle Polo and Leah Varela all had shots on goal in the first 23 minutes of the first half. Izzy Lane had a shot on goal in the second half, coming in the 58th minute.

UTSA is now 0-1-1 on the season including a 0-0 tie against Houston in the Roadrunners’ season opener. UTSA plays at home again on Thursday at 7 p.m. against St. Mary’s.

TCU, the defending Big 12 regular-season champion, beat Pepperdine 6-1 in its season opener and is now 2-0.

From UTSA coach Derek Pittman

“Against Pepperdine on Thursday night (TCU) completed 88 percent of their passes. We had a choice as a coaching staff. We could sit deep let them have the ball and park the bus. Or we could press them. Our DNA, our mentality is to press. I thought our players did a phenomenal job. We had pretty much 36 hours to work on that coming out of the Houston game. We needed to recover physically and mentally from that game, which was exhausting.

“I thought our players took on the game plan extremely well. I thought we disrupted TCU and made their life as difficult and miserable as possible. We were unfortunate to not pull away with a draw tonight.

“But again, when you have a good team like that, when you make one little error at the back post the team is going to punish you for it.”

On UTSA’s scoring chances:

“We know against a top 10 team in the country, we’re going to get only two, maybe three chances. We know we’re not going to get 15 shots. We’re not going to get seven, eight, nine good chances for goals. We’re going to get two or three.

“Most of all I’m extremely proud of our team for limiting TCU. To limit that team to 13 shots,
I think they had five on target. To be fair they scored six goals against (Pepperdine) the team that’s predicted to win the WCC – hats off to our team in how they went out and executed our plan.”

The Roadrunners played to a 0-0 tie with Houston on Thursday at Park West Athletics Complex.

Starters:

00 Jasmine Kessler
4 Leah Varela
5 Taliyah Spain
12 Emelie Ekman
13 Zoe May
15 Isabel Peters
16 Kacey Grahmann
23 Brooklyn Bailey
24 Aaliyaiah Durden
26 Michelle Polo
44 Izzy Lane

Subs:

2 Kameron Kloza
6 Bryn Maxwell
7 Ava Jackson
10 Brooke Viccars
17 Kamryn Watson
18 Maria Reyes
20 Abigail Casey
21 Rylee Miller

UTSA had some opportunities early and their best chance of the night in the final minute on Thursday night.

The Roadrunners weren’t able to put the ball into the net and finished with a 0-0 tie with Houston in the opener of the 2025 women’s soccer schedule at Park West.

UTSA goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler made seven saves and recorded her 11th career shutout.

The Roadrunners took 10 shots on the night. That including three shots on goal: one each by Aaliyaiah Durden, Izzy Lane and Bryn Maxwell.

Brooklyn Bailey had UTSA’s late penalty kick attempt. That came in the final minute of the game on a play that started with a Kameron Kloza free kick led to Ava Jackson being taken down at the edge of the box.

There was a strong breeze out of the south all night. UTSA had the wind at its back the first half and Houston had the wind advantage in the second half. Neither team was to convert that into a goal.

UTSA returns to action at home on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. against ninth-ranked TCU.

From coach Derek Pittman postgame:

I’m extremely proud of our team. We’re tough as hell, honestly.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for their coaching staff and what Ben (Williams), Peter (Mulamba) and their staff are going to do for that team as they move into the Big 12.

I thought our team showed a tremendous amount of resilience and tremendous amount of toughness tonight. It wasn’t our best soccer. We understand that. But you cannot doubt our commitment and our kids’ character on the field and giving effort and really doing a good job.

They had a chance at the end to win it. It would have been nice, the cherry on top. That does not change my opinion of how tough our kids are.

PITTMAN ON PLAYING AGAINST THE WIND IN THE SECOND HALF:

We were hoping the wind would die as the night went on because that’s normally what happens here in San Antonio. Normally we would have been all right.

We didn’t take enough chances in the first half. We should have pulled the trigger more. We were a little bit on the back foot and not as good quality wise.

We knew our backs were going to be against the wall in the second half. I was really proud of our kids and how they responded because I thought we created just as many if not better chances in the second half off the counter attack.

It’s a lot to build on. A lot to take away from this game. We’ll win some of these close ones for sure.

Roadrunners kick off the season against two Big 12 opponents

UTSA’s 2025 women’s soccer season officially gets underway tonight.

The Roadrunners take on Houston at 7 p.m. at UTSA Park West Athletics Complex.

UTSA warmed up for the opener with two exhibition matches.

The Roadrunners put on a show for the home fans with a 6-0 preseason victory over A&M-Corpus Christi at Park West.

“It really gave us an opportunity against Corpus to work on our defensive pressing, how we want to disrupt teams,” UTSA coach Derek Pittman said in Monday’s news conference on ESPN+. “It also gave us an opportunity to attack a lot. We were fortunate enough to score several goals in that game from a number of different people, which was really positive.”

The Roadrunners got goals three goals from Brooklyn Bailey and one each from Jasmine Kessler, Michelle Polo and Ava Jackson.

UTSA’s second preseason game was a 2-0 loss to 19th-ranked Texas.

“Going against Texas, we know they’re always going to be a talented squad,” Pittman said. “They’re ranked in the top 20 in the preseason polls. They won the SEC championship last year. They lost several players, key contributors for their team, but they’re still a very talented group and we knew it was going to be a different kind of test.

“We wanted to play Texas because we knew these are the types of games that we had coming up in the opening weekend. Texas was going to prepare us for what we’re going to see against Houston. Texas was going to prepare us for what we’re going to see vs. TCU.”

Houston, a member of the Big 12 Conference, beat UTSA 2-1 last season in Houston. Bri Carrigan scored UTSA’s only goal in the loss.

The Cougars are under new head coach Ben Williams. Last season he was the head coach at Stephen F. Austin, which won 14 games and reached the NCAA Tournament. Houston is led by senior Cameryn Maddox, who recorded two goals last season.

UTSA plays at home again Sunday at 7:30 p.m. against ninth-ranked TCU. The Frogs also open the season tonight, taking on Pepperdine in Fort Worth.

TCU is the defending Big 12 regular-season champion and is picked to win the conference again this season.

“It’s exactly what we want for our fans,” Pittman said. “We talk to our players all the time… we want to play the best. We want to put ourselves in these kinds of environments and play these types of teams that are going to test us and really show what we’re made of. I know our players are excited and ready for that.

“Come out and watch us at Park West and you get a chance to see us compete against two very, very strong Big 12 teams in Houston and obviously TCU being ranked in the top 10. It’s going to be a lot of fun to watch and I’m excited to see our players compete in these environments.”