Sooner Women's Soccer-> Looks to rebound at Texas A&M on Sunday!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Soccer Team will try to rebound in SEC play as they travel to College Station to face Texas A&M. Oklahoma lost their inaugural SEC Soccer match with Mississippi State on Thursday night by the score of 2-0. Oklahoma's record is 7-2-0 overall and 0-1-0 in SEC play. Texas A&M won on Thursday night at Missouri by the score of 1-0. Texas A&M is now 6-3-0 overall and 1-0-0 in SC play.

Here is the pre-match article written by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/9/21 ... -am-sunday

The Sooners need to pickup at least a tie in College Station on Sunday to pick up their first SEC point in Soccer. The Sooners will have to handle the ball much better in the midfield and connect on passes with increased consistency as they move the ball forward into the forward zone. Mississippi really put on a clinic with their passing and teamwork on Thursday night in their win over OU.

Hopefully, the Sooners can become a dual threat team, down the left side of the pitch and the down the right side of the pitch to keep the defenses from focusing on the due of King and Washington as they push the ball forward. Runs down the middle of the pitch would help from the midfield would also help the Sooner attack.

Texas A&M seems to attack in waves. They have 17 players who have earned an offensive point with either a goal or an assist. 13 players have at least 2 points. Five players have 5 or more points. The leading scorer for A&M is Sydney Becerra with 8 points on 3 goals and 2 assists. The Aggies have scored 17 goals in 9 matches for a little over 2 goals a game. Oklahoma is going to have be conscious of getting back on defense when they are on the attack with the two outside runners (King and Clifton) downfield.

Texas A&M has only allowed 10 goals for just a bit over 1 goal a match. Oklahoma will have to work hard to fill the middle of the box with midfielders and offside players when the Sooners penetrate the A&M goal area.

Good luck to the Sooners on Sunday in a 2 PM match.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Women's Soccer Team rebounded well from their loss at home to Mississippi State as they picked up their first SEC points with a 2-1 win over Texas A&M on Sunday's 2 PM match in College Station. The win by the Women's Soccer Team was also the first win in SEC by the University of Oklahoma. (That will be a trivia question some day.)

The Sooners scored first in the 18th minute of play on a very nice individual play by Ella Pappas. When the A&M Goalkeeper tried to pass the ball to a back row player down the middle of the pitch, Ella Pappas broke on the pass beautifully and intercepted the pass and controlled the ball smartly and kicked a nice bender just under the cross bar from just inside the box as two defenders moved in on her from two sides. It was a very heads up and alert play by Pappas as she scored her 6th goal of the season.

The Aggies of A&M, quickly scored their own goal within the same minute on a play that included a nice pass from Becerra to Pante who beat Duffy at point blank range as Pante got behind the back line for the Sooners. A&M carried the momentum of play for a period of time after their goal.

But in the 27th minute the Sooners earned a corner kick from the left side of the A&M goal. Leonie Weber delivered the ball to the front of the goal where a scrum followed in front of the goal. As the ball bounced out up over the shoulders of the players, Michelle Pak was right there and alertly headed the ball back towards the goal. At first it looked like the ball was saved by the Aggie GK, but the play was reviewed and the ball was clearly beyond the goal line as the GK punched the ball out. It was a "heads-up" goal by Pak with an assist by Weber.

The play between the two teams for the rest of the first half and during second half was back and forth. In the 87th minute, A&M suddenly had the ball in threatening position on the left side of the OU goal with Pante closing on Caroline Duffy, the Sooner GK. On purely a reaction play, Duffy managed to get her fully extended right hand on a dive to the quick shot to her right inside the goal post. Duffy was able to deflect the shot wide of the goal to preserve the win for the Sooners with her tremendous defensive play.

Here is the recap of the win by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/9/22 ... t-texas-am

The win pushes the Sooner record to 8-2-0 overall and 1-1-0 in SEC play. Texas A&M drops to a 6-4-0 overall record and a 1-1-0 SEC record.

The Sooners will be in action on Wednesday night in Baton Rogue to face the LSU Tigers. The article above says the match with LSU is on Wednesday. I believe that is incorrect as the schedule for OU and the SEC schedule shows the match to be on Thursday at 6 PM. LSU is 1-1-0 in SEC play as is Oklahoma. LSU is 6-4-0, Oklahoma is 8-2-0.

I will mention this cautiously. During the final minutes of the match, a Sooner players fell hard to the ground near the A&M end line. The Texas A&M medical staff and EMTs on hand at the game were very deliberate about treated the OU player. Coach Mott and the Sooner trainers were there for quite a while. I will say that it looked like a neck injury perhaps with the way the Sooner player was being treated with care by everyone involved. The announcers never said anything as to who they thought the player was. I do think the player was Abigail McNulty as I never saw her on the field or bench after that point of the match. There was also this post by the on the OU Soccer Social Media. We all wish Ms. McNulty the very best.

[OUBeliever56A]

Coach Mott on the Sooner win over Texas A&M.

[OUBeliever56A]

This is a post about a couple of Career Sooner marks for three current Sooners.

In the match yesterday against A&M, Leonie Weber picked up her 17th career assist. That moves into a tie with Sooner teammate Alexis Washington with 17 career assists for the Sooners. They both are in 2nd all-time for the Sooners one assist behind Lauren Maciver (2002-2005) who had 18 career assists.

Cailey England with her 90 minutes played on Sunday moved to 7066 minutes played for the Sooners in her career. That moved her into 3rd All-Time in minutes played. England trails Kelsey Devonshire (2009-2012) with 7326 minutes played and Madeline Brown (2014-2017) with 7450 minutes played in their careers.

Boomer Sooner!