By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
On the heels of a 2-0 victory over No. 17 Mississippi State, Baylor soccer stayed unbeaten with a 1-0 shutout win over Texas Thursday night, holding Texas to 13 total shots.
“[We’re] super proud of our team, but every game is a new game, and we have to go into every game with our absolute best,” sophomore forward Alysiah Lockette said. “Glory to God. Obviously, he’s the only reason we’re able to get all these wins and stay undefeated.”
The Longhorns started the match aggressively. Freshman forward Ava McDonald led the charge, going deep into Baylor territory multiple times and getting a shot on goal three minutes in.
“Something that we had to do is just stay dialed and always keep a head on a swivel and communicate where she is,” senior defender Hallie Augustyn said about McDonald. “She likes to sneak around, too, and we just had to stay dialed in and check our shoulder.”
The Bears shifted the momentum, connecting passes on the left side. Freshman midfielder Olivia Hess sent their first shot on goal of the match in the 12th minute. Junior forward Lauren Omholt followed that with an off-target shot a minute later.
Baylor stayed on the Texas end, forcing two corner kicks before turning the ball over for a goal kick.
As time ticked away in the first half, the Bears were forming another attack up the middle. Junior midfielder Aryanna Jimison sent a through ball into the box, finding Lockette racing to the goal. Lockette sent the ball through the legs of Texas’s goalkeeper to give Baylor a 1-0 lead with over six minutes remaining.
“I was thinking from Mississippi State with Ary (Jimison), I was like ‘Just go at the defender, Ary‘s next to me,’” Lockette said. “I passed it to her and then the defenders dropped off, so I was like, ‘OK, I’m just going to go through, and Ary can slip those balls.”
The goal was Lockette’s second of the season after not recording a single one across 21 matches in 2024.
The Bears ended the half with two shots in the final 10 minutes while not allowing a Texas shot.
The Longhorns spent 35% of their possession in Baylor’s end in the first half, but three blocks by the Bears kept the ball from reaching senior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez.
“What [head coach Michelle Lenard] likes us to do is analyze and assess the field and then see what we need to change,” Augustyn said. “Since they’re a team that likes to switch formations … something that she stuck, especially the back lines’ head, is like, ‘OK, if this player goes here, we need to switch formations, and our team did well with that.’”
Texas opened the second half attacking again, out-shooting the Bears three to one and adding two corner kicks in the first nine minutes.
Junior forward Callie Conrad led the counter by tallying two shots. Omholt made a run for the Texas goal in the 62nd minute. She reached the six-yard box and made a shot that scooted across the goal and went wide.
Trying to extend the lead, Omholt got a shot on goal, but a diving save from freshman goalkeeper Mateya Dessieux kept the ball in play. Junior midfielder Theresa McCullough tried to put the ball in off the rebound but could not get it past the defender, hitting the crossbar. Jimison intercepted the Longhorns’ clearance, firing a third consecutive Baylor shot that missed to the left.
“We want to have that killer instinct to go and put teams away,” Lenard said. “If we’d got the second goal, it would have killed the game, but we didn’t, so we had to do the defensive work that was required of us.”
After the dangerous opportunity, the Bears continued to rain shots at Dessieux. They sent forward five shots to Texas’ two.
Baylor held on in the final minutes to defeat the Longhorns 1-0.
“Good teams don’t just have one good game, but they need to be consistent and stack good performances, ” Lenard said. “Today was a great example, [we’re] managing the game through all of the highs and lows … our team is maturing and learning how to do that.”
Alvarez and the defense in front of her kept up the hot start to the season. She secured her fourth straight clean sheet after allowing a goal to Texas A&M in the first match of the season. Alvarez has accumulated 10 saves in those four matches, including a season-high four in the Bears’ 2-0 win over Montana.
“Our back line — talk about grit, especially with Azul, and then you have the newcomer Emerson (Garcia) and then Nat (Vatter), who’s very consistent,” Augustyn said.
The Bears will look to remain unbeaten when they take on Texas State at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Bobcat Soccer Complex in San Marcos.
