UTRGV women’s soccer (4-1-2, 1-1-1) finds the back of the net twice for a 2-0 victory over Western Athletic Conference (WAC) opponent Chicago State (0-5-0, 0-3-0) Thursday night at the UTRGV Soccer and Track & Field Complex.
From the opening whistle, the Vaqueros applied constant pressure on the Cougars as junior forward Emily Zapata stole the ball from junior forward Chame VanDerWalt in the defending third and passed it to a wide-open freshman midfielder Madeline Von Moeller.
Von Moeller took a few dribbles and fired a high arching shot over the outstretched arm of freshman goalkeeper Sella Chiara to record her first collegiate goal and the first goal of the match at the seven-minute mark.
Chicago State continued to struggle on the wings as UTRGV continued to play wide.
The Vaqueros, in the 18th minute, had the ball with freshman defender Nadia Colon on the flank as UTRGV were looking to add to their lead.
Colon then nutmegged Chicago State junior defender Jaydie Hanks and put a cross into the box where senior midfielder Gina Steiner headed the ball in to complete the highlight play and put UTRGV up 2-0.
The Cougars would try to close the margin as junior defender Carmen Acedo, senior midfielder Debora Maciel and forward Julia Oliveira would fire at the net but Vaquero junior goalkeeper Maile Lunardi’s hands would neutralize the threat each time.
In the second half, Chicago State began to find their rhythm but UTRGV’s backline would hold strong as they would only allow one shot for the whole period.
The Vaqueros continued to play wide and fast with fresh legs as UTRGV Head Coach Glad Burariu played a total of 22 players on 19 substitutions through the course of 90 minutes as they searched for the third goal of the game.
The Cougars limited UTRGV to only three shots in the second half that were all saved by Chiara.
For the game, UTRGV outshot Chicago State 18-4 and 11-3 on goal.
In a postgame news conference via Zoom, Bugariu remarked on the positive contributions that players off the bench had in pelting the Chicago State goal.
“We had a lot of younger players that hadn’t played as much step up today and played a lot of minutes,” he said. “That was enjoyable to see. It puts a lot of spin on our competition and everybody in the mix and that is important.”
The Vaqueros earned their first home win of the season as they had previously drawn against Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Seattle U and fell on a late free kick in the second game of the series versus the Redhawks.
Chiara would finish the match with nine saves.
Lunardi, who finished with three saves, and freshman goalkeeper Macie Blohowiak, who subbed in at the 68th minute, would combine for the Vaqueros fourth clean sheet of the season.
The next two games for UTRGV will be against Utah Valley (3-2-1, 2-1-0) in Orem, Utah at 6 p.m. and noon on March 4 and 6, respectively.
Bugariu added that the seven-day break between the upcoming games will allow players to recover and see the return of freshman forward Mari Liis Lillemae from an international call-up.
“We’ll be able to recover everybody and hopefully when we see that the entire team is ready to go it’s certainly going to be an extra motivation for our players,” Bugariu said. “Certainly, recover the injuries, we’ll have Mari [Liis Lillemae] back from the Estonian national team so we should be able to put in a good performance and give Utah [Valley] quite a good game.”
To watch the match live, visit the WAC Digital Network at wacdigitalnetwork.com.
Twitter: @Radio_Rubio
