TCU W-Soccer Downs Texas
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FORT WORTH – In front of the fourth-largest crowd in stadium history, the TCU women’s soccer team made history Sunday afternoon as they handed Texas a 1-0 loss to record their first-ever Big 12 victory. A gritty defensive effort by the Horned Frogs helped Vittoria Arnold notch her sixth shutout of the year.
“We are pretty fired up to beat a quality opponent and get our first Big 12 victory of the season,” said head coach Eric Bell. “I think our team finally competed for 90 minutes and we gave ourselves a chance to win. We scored a great goal in the first half and were able to hold on to it in the second half. I am very proud of our group. We are making strides at the right time of the season. Hopefully we can carry that into next weekend.”
The Horned Frogs controlled much of the play in the first half as they outshot the Longhorns 8-5 and earned nine corner kicks. Serena Smith-Banas had the first golden opportunity of the match as she found herself wide open at the top of the goal box in the 10th minute. Her low shot was deflected just wide of
the goal by Longhorn goalkeeper Abby Smith.
TCU’s pressure finally paid off in the 18th minute. Ashley Jones carried the ball upfield and managed to lose her defender, allowing her to send a perfect feed right to a waiting Kelly Johnson. Johnson made a couple of nice moves to get around her defender and made a perfect strike on the ball, knocking it into the upper, near corner for a 1-0 lead.
The Frogs kept the pressure on, earning multiple corner kicks, but could never get off a good shot and they carried a 1-0 lead into half time.
“For us to be successful we need our whole team to play hard. That’s all we ask is for them to come out and battle hard.”
Texas turned the tables in the second half and mounted a furious rally to try and get the equalizer. The back line of Morgan Lane, Smith-Banas, Bobbi Clemmer and Rebekah Foreman did a fantastic job of keeping the quality shots to a minimum and not on goal.
“One of the things we concentrate on is that when teams get into shooting-range that we have the opportunity to be tight and block shots. We did a really good job blocking shots and the ones they got on goal were far out and easy for Vittoria. She had to make one, maybe two saves to keep us in it. Other than that, I thought we pretty much had the game under control.”
The Longhorns best chance of the contest came in the 67th minute as they battled deep in the TCU defensive zone. Kelsey Shimmick took a header that was ticketed for the back of the net, but Carly Bowen was there to head the ball out of danger, just before it crossed the goal line. Brooke Gilbert fired off another shot on the rebound, but that one was blocked, too.
“The crowd was huge. If we can continue to get crowds like this it’s just going to give us a much better home field advantage and an awesome atmosphere. Kudos to those who came out Friday and today.”
Texas continued to put the pressure on, but the defense held strong. Arnold’s biggest save of the afternoon came in the 82nd minute as she made a diving, punch save on a Shimmick shot from out wide.
The victory pushes TCU’s record to 6-8-3 overall and 1-4-2 in league play. The Frogs will wrap up regular season play Friday night as it heads to Waco for a meeting with Baylor. Match time is set for 7 p.m.
