By Foster Nicholas | Sports Editor
In the first afternoon match of the season, as temperatures neared triple digits, Baylor soccer secured its first win of conference play and broke a four-game winless streak against Houston, 4-0, Sunday at Betty Lou Mays Field.
Head coach Michelle Lenard saw her Bears (6-4-1, 1-2-0 Big 12) match their goal total from the previous five games combined and score their second-highest amount of goals in a game this season.
“We’re thrilled with the shutout. We’re thrilled with four goals. We wanted to come out with an aggressive attacking mindset, and I thought we did that,” Lenard said. “After we started scoring in the first half, our challenge at halftime was, ‘Can we keep the momentum going? Can we have that killer instinct that we’ve lacked recently?’
“So, I’m happy with the second half to keep the pressure on, and honestly, there might have been a couple more goals in there for us.”
The Bears jumped on the Cougars (3-5-1, 0-3-0 Big 12) early, scoring a pair of first-half goals in a matter of minutes. After peppering the goalie early, junior forward Tyler Isgrig’s persistence paid off as her corner kick service in the 32nd minute found junior defender Hallie Augustyn. Augustyn lept and sent a header into the top left corner of the net for the first Baylor goal of Big 12 play.
“It’s fun attacking the ball in the box because I stay back the entire time. So getting to have the opportunity to go into the box and attack the ball is really exciting to me,” Augustyn said. “The first goal sets the tone for our team, and it builds us up.”
Before Augustyn’s header, Baylor had gone without a goal in the first 45 minutes since Aug. 24, when it scored the lone goal of the game against Portland, 1-0.
The green and gold added insurance in the 35th minute as Isgrig added her own goal even after her previous assist. Sophomore defender Natalie Vatter dished up back post-service for Isgrig who shrugged a header into the near side of the goal. Of Baylor’s four goals, three of them came on headers, which were a focus point of practices working up to the match.
“That’s something that we’ve been challenging them on. We haven’t been attacking the ball in the air. We haven’t been brave to go up and get those opportunities,” Lenard said. “We’ve been practicing that this week and [the coaches] really, really called them to account on. It was great to see.”
Isgrig led Baylor with two assists and five of the team’s 26 shots. While catching her breath over the halftime break, graduate student midfielder Ashley Merrill scored her first goal since Aug. 18. Merrill’s header goal extended the green and gold’s lead to 3-0 in the 56th minute.
Sophomore forward Callie Conrad, who assisted Merrill’s goal, finished her own goal in the 65th minute as the Houston goalkeeper was off her post.
“I was in a bit of a drought, but it feels good,” Merrill said. “I also love that we have a bunch of girls on this team that can score goals. It doesn’t just have to be on one of us, I mean, we just scored four.”
The Baylor defense was strong all game. Junior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez recorded five saves, and the back line prevented the other 13 Houston shots from reaching the box. Augustyn, the only Bear to play all 90 minutes, felt that defensive play over the four-game homestand was the biggest source of pride for the green and gold.
Baylor will travel for the first time in over two weeks and continue Big 12 play at 8 p.m. Thursday against returning conference foe No. 21 Colorado (8-1, 2-0 Big 12) at Prentup Field in Boulder, Colo.
“I don’t expect that we should have any issues getting excited about these games,” Lenard said of the week ahead. “Every game is a big game. We know where we stand right now. We need points. So, hopefully, we come out the same way we did today.”
