UTRGV women’s soccer, the No. 4 seed, fell 0-3 to No. 5 New Mexico State in the quarterfinals of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Tournament Tuesday at GCU Stadium in Phoenix.
In the opening minutes of the first half, the Vaqueros were the aggressors as junior forwards Emily Zapata and Shentatious Knox had shots on goal, but they were corralled by Aggie senior goalkeeper Dmitri Fong.
The deadlock was ultimately broken in the 28th minute as sophomore midfielder Xitlaly Hernandez was able to put a strike past Vaquero junior goalkeeper Maile Lunardi from 18 yards out.
Now playing from behind, the Vaqueros attempted to even the score with shots from senior midfielder Gina Steiner and Zapata in the 29th and 44th minute, respectively, but Fong was able to prevent the equalizer.
Fong would total six saves on the day helping the Aggies for their second clean sheet of the season.
At the half, despite the goal difference, both teams were evenly matched as the Aggies outshot the Vaqueros 8-6 but the UTRGV placed more shots on goal, 4-3 while both teams took two corner kicks.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, UTRGV Head Coach Glad Bugariu explained that his adjustments for the second half revolved around simplicity.
“At halftime, we wanted to play a little bit simpler,” Bugariu said. “Not complicate the game much, we wanted to continue on what we were doing on with the chance we created.”
Despite these adjustments, the Aggies scored a quick second half goal in the 49th minute by freshman forward Morgan Ormson on an assist from senior midfielder Emma Smith and sophomore forward Hanna Leitner.
The Aggies would put the game out of reach just three minutes later on an assist from Leitner that found the back of the net courtesy of junior forward Corey Kizer.
Already having played the Aggies twice this season, in 2-1 and 1-0 victory, Bugariu didn’t see a major tactical difference from the opposition from their previous two matches but instead a lack of intensity from his team.
“Unfortunately, we came out and we just didn’t have the same energy, the same intensity as we did in the first half,” Bugariu said. “New Mexico [State] really came out on fire and put the game away pretty quickly. The game was over within seven minutes of the beginning of the second half.”
Coming into the match, the Vaqueros had traveled more than 8,500 miles over 10 days with road trips to Chicago and St. George, Utah.
This prevented the team from following their normal preparation routine headed into the match as Bugariu and the coaching staff focused on recovery from their long roadtrips.
“We focused on rest and recovery because we had a bit of a fuller schedule leading up to [the tournament],” he said. “It didn’t payoff, we really just hope to approach the game the same way we have in the past.”
Ultimately Bugariu was looking for the team to advance and make a deep run in the tournament instead of being bounced in 0-3 fashion.
“We are very disappointed, we never thought it would end this way,” Bugariu said. “We thought our end of season would have a different look to it, a different result, a different feeling.”
Bugariu did share a bit of positivity as the team completed it’s fifth-straight winning season, a 11-win campaign and the 19 underclassmen gained invaluable Division I experience.
“If we look at the spring season as a whole, this is the best thing that has happened to us,” he said. “To have a transitional season where we don’t lose eligibility but also have competitive matches that count against your record. That can only help everyone around and build that experience.”
The Vaqueros over the lengthy offseason will be looking to retain a majority of the squad with the only departure currently set being Steiner after having played in a total of 72 matches, totaling nine goals and eight assists in over her four years at UTRGV.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
