By Foster Nicholas | Sports Writer
Making quick adjustments and never looking back, Baylor soccer peppered the goal and stayed stout defensively to dominate Arizona State, 4-0, Thursday night at Betty Lou Mays Field.
Head coach Michelle Lenard and the Bears (7-5-3, 2-3-2 Big 12) honed in on creating chances and finishing opportunities in the days leading up to the midweek match. Matching their team high of four goals scored in conference play and seeing the fruit of their labor pay off helped put the team back on the right track after three matches without a win.
“It was really important, both for just our mental state right now and to get back out there and create chances and finish some really good opportunities,” Lenard said. “To lead a game and stay in control of the game, for really all of it … altogether a great performance.”
The Sun Devils (7-4-3, 2-4-1) put pressure on Baylor early, with four shots in the first six minutes. Confined in Arizona State’s attacking third, the Bears opened the game on the back foot before junior forward Tyler Isgrig forced the ball free and enabled a counter. The green and gold recorded a pair of shots before Isgrig took the game’s first corner kick in the 11th minute.
From the left side, Isgrig used her favorable left boot and launched the service into the box. As it curved toward the right post, a Sun Devil leaped to try and head the ball to safety, but instead helped it into the net. With a 1-0 lead, the green and gold kept the attacking threat alive for the remainder of the half.
“Once we got through that first five minutes and settled down, I think after that it was all us,” Lenard said. “We can be dangerous in a lot of different ways with a lot of different players. And we really just need to do that more often.”
Coming into Thursday, the Bears had only scored goals in the first half of three other matches. In all three, Baylor walked away victorious. Looking to double down on the trend, graduate student midfielder Ashley Merrill scored in the 21st minute on senior night off an assist by sophomore forward Callie Conrad. In front of friends and family, cheers poured over the team as they rode the 2-0 advantage into halftime.
Out of the break, the Bears flashed nifty passing and dribbling to evade the Sun Devils’ quick defense. One good service deserved another for Isgrig, whose set piece from midfield set up Baylor for its third score of the game. The junior lofted a floating ball into the box and junior defender Hannah Augustyn finished with a header, her third goal of the season, in the 49th minute.
From there, junior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez did the rest. The TCU transfer logged a career-high nine saves en route to her fifth shutout of the season as Arizona State failed to optimize counterattack chances. With the Sun Devils forced to be the aggressor, the green and gold found one final opportunity to build momentum.
Conrad added insurance and enthusiasm to the Baylor win with the fourth goal of the night in the 87th minute. The sophomore’s sixth career goal came one-on-one as she blew by the goalkeeper and launched a bullet off her right foot into the back of the net.
“[The win was] very big for us, because we need to get up to at least the top 12 for the Big 12 tournament. So that’s our first priority coming up, and then after that, we can look forward, hopefully to the NCAA tournament,” Conrad said. “We’ve [played] it close with some of the top teams, but we really needed this win to get back up in the standings.”
The Bears will play their last home match of the season at 1 p.m. Sunday against West Virginia (9-2-2, 5-0-1) at Betty Lou Mays Field.
