COMMERCE – ACU was shut out for the first time all season late Friday night as Texas A&M-Commerce took a 1-0 victory over the No. 23 Wildcats in a key Lone Star Conference women's soccer match at the A&M-Commerce Soccer Field.
The loss snaps ACU's eight-match winning streak and drops the Wildcats into a tie for second place in the LSC, one game behind Midwestern State with one match to play. The Wildcats (13-3 overall and 8-2 in the LSC) will close out the regular season Sunday afternoon at Texas Woman's.
The Wildcats are now tied for second place with Angelo State (a 3-2 winner on Friday), one game behind Midwestern State (9-1), a 3-0 winner Friday over Texas Woman's. If MSU beats Texas A&M-Commerce on Sunday it will win the regular-season title and the right to host next weekend's LSC Post-Season Tournament.
If ACU, Midwestern and Angelo State finish the regular season tied at 9-2, the league would have to go to its third tie-breaker rule – in this case goal differential in conference matches – to determine the regular-season champion and tournament host. In that scenario, ACU would have to beat TWU 4-0 and hope Midwestern gets shut out at Commerce in order to win the regular-season title and the right to host the tournament.
The Wildcats are the league's highest-scoring team, but couldn't put one past Commerce goalkeeper Randi Hafele, who had eight saves en route to recording her eighth shutout of the season. Hafele made several key stops in the match, including one on an
Ashley Holton blast inside the final 30 seconds of the match when she punched the ball away just before it got past her into the net.
Texas A&M-Commerce senior Megan Monroe scored her first collegiate goal in the 35th minute when her shot from 40 yards out went over the heads of ACU defenders and got past ACU goalkeeper
Elliott London for what turned out to be the only goal of the match.
ACU freshman
Andrea Carpenter and sophomore
Julie Coppedge each had three shots on goal and Holton had two, but none could find their way past the masterful Hafele.
