KANSAS CITY – The Big 12 Women’s Soccer Tournament started with Oklahoma State’s 3-goal comeback win, which was quickly followed by a rally win of their own from Colorado. Baylor scored within the first ten minutes of play and never trailed en route to a round one victory, while Kansas had a firm grip for most of their match against Arizona St.
The first game of the day started slow with a zero-goal effort from both teams in a tightly contested first half. Cincinnati broke the stalemate, against Oklahoma State, in the fifty-first minute of play with a goal from freshman Rylee Felton. The freshman scored on a ricochet of her shot off a defender, taking advantage of graduate goalie Grace Gordon being out of position. Fellow freshman Jada Arthur, subbing in place of Felton, followed with a goal from the edge of the penalty box in the sixty-sixth minute, which served as the first goal of her collegiate career.
Oklahoma State’s first goal of the contest came in the seventy-seventh minute on a shot by freshman Reganne Morris that also marked her first collegiate goal. The shot came from just inside the penalty box and snuck by graduate goalie Anna Rexford in a save effort that looked more like a coordinated fall than a save. The equalizer came in the eighty-sixth minute on an own goal, on a shot attempt by junior Xcaret Pineda that bounced off the foot of Cincinnati junior Faith Broering and past Rexford who was moving in the opposite direction. Senior Alex Morris, the older sister of Reganne, put the nail in the coffin with her eighty-eighth-minute goal from well beyond the penalty box that got by Rexford in a flying effort that ended up being futile. Oklahoma State advanced to round two and a matchup against BYU with their 3-2 victory.
Utah came into their match as the eighth seed going against ninth-seeded Colorado, the teams came into the game fresh off a 0-0 faceoff on October 25th. The first half was evenly matched until the twenty-third minute when freshman Katie Callaway snuck through the penalty box and received a well-placed pass from senior Katie O’Kane. The goal crept by Big 12 Goalkeeper of the Year junior Jordan Nytes who was attempting to reposition from the other side goalie box. The next goal was almost fifty minutes of play later when sophomore Hope Leyba won a race to a ball that seemed to be sailing over her head and poked the ball past the goalie Kasey Wardle, who in turn received a yellow card after she argued with the refs about the validity of the goal. The game-winner came in the eighty-fifth minute of play when sophomore Ava Priest delivered her fourth goal of the season on a shot that seemed to almost have come from outside of the stadium but found the back of the net. Wardle seemed to mistime her jump as the ball sailed over her head and sealed Colorado’s 2-1 victory, as they look to face the top-seeded TCU in round two of play.
The third game of the day started with a bang when Baylor’s Callie Conrad scored her fifth goal on the season off an assist from junior Tyler Isgrig, who had drawn away the goalie giving Conrad an empty net to score. The equalizer from Arizona would come just fourteen minutes later when freshman Narissa Fults broke away on a through pass from senior Gianna Christiansen and powered the ball past junior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez. While Arizona was the more aggressive team, the tiebreaker came courtesy of Baylor’s sophomore Carline Staubach in the seventy-fifth minute. The only ejection of the day came from a dispute between Isgrig and Arizona’s Aranda Hurge when the players legs got tangled together, then ended with Hurge throwing a punch at Isgrig. Hurge was rewarded with a red card for her Tyson imitation, while Isgrig received a yellow for her part. Baylor held on for the final fifteen minutes of play to secure the 2-1 advancement and a matchup against Texas Tech.
Kansas took the bright lights of the night game serious and came out shooting in the final game of the day against Arizona St. In the first half alone kansas had 11 shots, but only capitalized on one opportunity when junior Lexi Watts received a pass off a header from freshman Jillian Gregorski in the sixteenth minute. Arizona St was held in check for most of the period with only 1 shot attempt. The second half didn’t see much improvement for Arizona St, with a goal allowed in the fifty-seventh minute on a shot from outside the penalty box that sailed past junior goalie Pauline Nelles and gave Kansas the 2-1 advantage. Arizona St scored a minute later off the foot of freshman Kierra Blundell who took advantage of the Kansas goalie, freshman Sophie Dawe, running into her own defender and allowing Blundell the free pass. That turned out to be the only life that Arizona St would show as they were outshot ten to three in the second half. Kansas looked dominant in their win other than the mishap that allowed the goal in the fifty-eigth minute, they’ll look to stay aggressive as they look to face West Virginia for a chance to advance to the semi-final round.
The first round of the Big 12 Women’s Soccer Tournament provided must watch moments and hopes to follow up in the quarterfinal round with even more as the top four teams in the tournament look to start their bids for the championship. The four teams advancing from round one will be on two day’s rest as they look to stay alive against their higher seeded opponents.
