210GAMEDAY.COM | SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
The physical aspect of the game tests the toughness of the players – all the soaring, crashing, grabbing, colliding and other not so glamorous challenges of life on the pitch.
May’s goal came with just over a minute left to play. The senior from Canada took a penalty kick, which was blocked by Charlotte goalkeeper Harlee Head. May nailed the rebound into the bottom right side of the net with 88:58 showing on the clock.
It was May’s fourth goal of the season.
Megan Bradley scored Charlotte’s goal in the first half. UTSA goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler made six saves.
UTSA is 6-2-4 on the season and 2-0-2 in conference. The Roadrunners play on the road against Rice on Thursday at 6 p.m.
Lane, a senior from London, England, scored her goal in the 82nd minute.
Roadrunners goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler added to her school record with her 15th career shutout.
UTSA (6-2-2 overall, 2-0 in AAC) plays its next game on the road Thursday, Sept. 25, at UAB. The Roadrunners are back home at Park West on Sunday, Sept. 28, against Charlotte.
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.
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.”
“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 (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+.
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.”
Durden scored in the first half, Brooklyn Bailey scored in the second half – both on headers – and the Roadrunners made it 3-0 on a late own-goal to beat St. Mary’s on Thursday night at UTSA Park West Athletics Complex.
Durden is a redshirt sophomore midfield who came to UTSA from Seminole State College. Her goal on Thursday night was her first in a UTSA uniform and first Division I goal. Her shot was a header in the 33rd minute off a free kick from Ava Jackson, a redshirt freshman from British Columbia, Canada.
Bailey is a freshman from Klein Collins High School in Spring Texas. She had three goals in a UTSA exhibition game. Thursday marked her first official collegiate goal and it came in the 67th minute off an assist from Kamryn Watson.
UTSA’s defense recorded its second shutout and has allowed only one goal in three games. Starting goalkeeper Jasmine Kessler played most of Thursday’s game and Brilynn Mueller finished off the second half.
UTSA is now 1-1-1 on the season. The Roadrunners are back at home on Sunday at 7 p.m. against Lamar.
“Ava stepped up to the plate to serve it in. Massive credit to her. That was a great ball. I just happened to be right place at the right time.
“It was definitely a relief to see the ball go into the back of the net. It’s always a good feeling to get a goal at home.”
“We were all working together and just wanting to get out first in-season win, not just an exhibition match. So it just felt great to be out there and get a W.
“It was going good. I ended up falling on the ground but getting back up and celebrating with my teammates. It was really good.
“I saw it coming off. I had the defender below me so then I was trying to get over her and try to make sure the header went down and not over the goal. I was just glad the ball went where I wanted it to go and the ball was placed perfectly from Kam so it was really good.
“After Aaliyaiah scored and after the half kind of coming together and saying that we need to move forward as a team and go against our standards and not play to their level and just continuing to keep our standards high. We just had to settle down and continue play our game.”
Last year, UTSA beat St. Mary’s 1-0 on a goal by Izzy Lane. Jasmine Kessler and Jordan Walker had assists and Kessler made two saves.
UTSA is 0-1-1 coming into this season’s rematch. The Roadrunners, who didn’t score in either of their first two outings, are coming off a 0-0 tie with Houston and a 1-0 loss to ninth-ranked TCU.
St. Mary’s has played one exhibition, a 4-0 loss to Houston. The Rattlers’ schedule also shows Thursday’s meeting with UTSA as an exhibition.
St. Mary’s went 9-7-3 last season and reached the Lone Star Tournament quarterfinals. Rattlers head coach Kevin Driggs has a 46-31-14 record in five season at St. Mary’s.
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.
“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.”
