Women's soccer faces SW Texas after loss to A&M

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by Matthew Chrisman

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There were no drastic letdowns in the Rice defense, but nevertheless, A&M pounded home two goals in the first half.

One of the goals was a strong direct kick scored by an A&M striker. The other goal was scored later in the half off a corner kick.

The Owls made no serious attempts on goal in the first half. A&M's defense was fairly strong but not really challenged.

Because Rice had dropped into a defensive shell for most of the half, whenever the A&M defense got the ball, there was no more than one Rice striker to challenge.

Therefore, the Aggies could knock it around their backfield while choosing the best place to penetrate into Rice territory.

Most of the time, A&M worked it up from their backfield into a strong offensive midfield attack. Sometimes, though, a quick long ball provided the penetrating attack.

The second half was highlighted for Rice by two goals. Junior captain Sarah Newton scored fairly early in the half off a penalty kick. And later in the half, Newton scored off an assist from Erica Jacobs.

This, however, wasn't enough as A&M matched Rice in the second half with two goals of their own.

It scored off another corner kick, and off a spectacular play by its offense. Once again, it wasn't really a breakdown in the Rice defense.

Newton said, "There were moments of good play, but most of the game, we didn't play great."

Throughout the game, A&M dominated the midfield. Especially in the air, the A&M players showed an extreme dominance in getting up over the Rice players for the headers.

With the strong A&M offense, the Rice defense had a lot of action. They showed well, but just couldn't hold off the constant A&M attack.

Tomorrow, Rice will try to shrug off the loss as it takes on Southwest Texas State University in the last home game of the season at 2 p.m. at the soccer field.

This item appeared in the Sports section of the October 6, 1995 issue.

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