Early goal gives Wildcats a 1-0 victory over Texas-Brownsville

Friday, August 30

Wildcat Soccer Pitch

4 p.m.

Abilene Christian

2-0-0

UT Brownsville

0-1-0

Team	1	2	Final F
UT-Brownsville	0	0	0
Abilene Christian	1	0	1

Photo by: Gary Rhodes

Early goal gives Wildcats a 1-0 victory over Texas-Brownsville

8/30/2013 6:33:00 PM | Women's Soccer

Box Score

ABILENE – The first career goal of junior Taylor Brown's career was all the Abilene Christian women's soccer team needed in its 1-0 victory over Texas-Brownsville on a hot Friday afternoon at the Wildcat Soccer Complex.

Katie Stivers assisted on the game-winner, which came in the second minute, for her second point of the season. Stivers carried the ball down the left flank, crossed it perfectly into the six-yard box, where Brown one-timed it past the Ocelot netminder.

ACU improved to 2-0 on the season with the win and will next play at Texas-El Paso Sunday at 1 p.m., while the Ocelots – a top-10 NAIA program and an Elite Eight participant from a year ago – fell to 0-1 despite outshooting the Wildcats in the first half, 8-6.

ACU went on to outshoot its guests in the second half by a whopping margin of 13-2, but goalkeeper Amanda Fulton kept her team in the match with six tremendous saves over the final 45 minutes. She was also helped by defender Melissa Moreno who blocked a Jacey Ferrara shot at the post.

The Ocelots' Monica Mendes was credited with their first team save early in the first half, sweeping a ball off the line after starting goalkeeper Maria Eriksen slipped outside the goal mouth.

Overall, UT-B finished with 11 saves to five for the Wildcats, four of which were made by starter Kelsey Dombrowski. Freshman Sydney Newton made one save in relief for the combined shutout.

Brown's score came on ACU's second shot of the match and was part of an offensive flurry for the Wildcats, when it appeared possible they would run up the score in a hurry. But Andrea Carpenter soon had one of her three shots blocked, and then Brown had her third attempt brushed away by Mendes.

Brownsville didn't record its first shot until more than seven minutes and had passed and Dombrowski didn't make her first save until the start of the 23rd minute. The latter half of the first period, however, belonged to the Ocelots as they held ACU to just one more shot during the final 37 minutes, while taking four corner kicks.

ACU recorded six corner kicks in the second half and had seven for the match.

Brown led all players with six shots and placed five on goal. UT-B had three players with three attempts.

Today's victory gave ACU a 2-0 all-time series lead over Brownsville and an 8-0 mark against NAIA programs. The Wildcats began their season last Sunday with a 3-2 win at Oklahoma City.

ACU's match at UTEP is its first ever against a NCAA D-I FBS school.