ABILENE – A near-capacity crowd of 948 fans were on hand for the first soccer match at Elmer Gray Stadium Friday night, but it was the visiting Mean Green of North Texas who went home happy as their relentless physical style of play resulted in a 3-0 victory.
Tonight's decision was North Texas' third shutout of the season as it improved to 4-1, while the Wildcats slipped to 1-3-1.
ACU tried to combat the Mean Green's attackers with a little physicality of its own, but early in the 12th minute goalkeeper
Kelsey Dombrowski was yellow-carded for her role in a collision that seemingly knocked the wind out of forward Rachel Holden for a few moments.
That hit led to a North Texas penalty kick, which Karla Pineda drilled past Dombrowski into the lower left corner. Pineda added a third point to her tally seven minutes later when Molly Grisham headed her free kick through some traffic in the goalmouth.
The Mean Green went into the break ahead 2-0 and had a 12-2 advantage in shots, four of which were on goal.
Dombrowski also came out at halftime in favor of junior
Sydney Newton, who made four saves on eight shots in her season debut tonight.
Newton made several outstanding stops during her 45 minutes in goal, but was caught out of position in the 84th minute. With Newton down around the top of the 18-yard line Lindsey Hulstein fired on what she thought was an empty net from about 10-yards away; however, ACU defender
Kelsie Roberts was able to get a leg on the ball only to see it ricochet back to Holden.
Holden then buried the rebound attempt into the lower right corner for the game's final score.
ACU received much better chances in the second half to score as it finished with five shots and two corner kicks, plus a free kick from midfielder
Maria Gomez five-yards down the end line that was ultimately cleared away.
Three of ACU's five second-half shots came in the first 10 minutes, but their best chance to get on the scoreboard came in the 69th minute with
Leslie Snider going up for a header against goalkeeper Jackie Kerestine. Snider got a piece of the ball and it looked to be going toward the net before rolling wide.
Another Wildcat player would later somersault over Kerestine trying to score from the near post.
Kerestine made three saves and left the match with 6:55 to go – replaced by Brooke Bradley - after her side went ahead 3-0.
The Wildcats finished the match with seven players taking one shot each. Roberts,
Sophie Standifer and
Megan Baer each had a shot on goal.
Holden and Pineda led all players with four shots.
The road only gets tougher for ACU Sunday when they visit third-ranked Texas A&M at Ellis Field for a match nationally broadcast on
SEC Network +.
