By Jeffrey Cohen | Sports Writer
After seven years of waiting to return to the national stage, No. 5-seeded Baylor wanted to make the most of its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018.
They did. The Bears dominated Texas State on Friday, 3-0, moving onto the second round behind 17 shots, including eight on goal.
The Bears (13-4-4, 7-3-1 Big 12) were no strangers to Texas State (10-4-7, 5-1-4 Sun Belt), having defeated the Bobcats 4-1 on Sept. 7 behind three second-half goals, including a pair from senior midfielder Tyler Isgrig.
“It’s always hard to play a team twice in a season, especially a team of their caliber,” graduate midfielder Kai Hayes said. “We had one goal, two goals, and we know that’s not good enough.”
The match started with a war of attrition in the middle of the field, with neither team recording a shot in the first 10 minutes.
The Bears started working their way downfield. A lob into the Bobcats’ box connected with junior forward Callie Conrad for a header that scraped the top of the crossbar and careened out of play. Sighs of disappointment from the Baylor fans and relief from Texas State supporters paraded through Betty Lou Mays Field.
“We didn’t come out with quite as much energy and control of the game as we wanted, but still stayed with it throughout the first half,” head coach Michelle Lenard said. “As the game went on, we grew into the game.”
The Bobcats tried to answer immediately as the Bears’ back line could not connect on a pass, leading to a rush for midfielder Alexis Montgomery, who missed the left post by a few feet.
The Bears took control and dominated the rest of the match.
Baylor continued to attack from the outside. The Bears sent in multiple crosses that found space in front of goalkeeper Brooklyn Escobar, but could not reach the foot of a Baylor player.
Senior midfielder Tyler Isgrig controlled possession with three white-and-maroon jerseys surrounding her. She connected with junior forward Theresa McCullough on the right side, creating another threat for the Bears. McCullough laced a cross deep into Texas State territory, where Hayes knocked in a header past the reach of Escobar.
“Theresa’s been working on that all season long,” Hayes said. “I told her, ‘If I run in the box, find me’ — and finally, it happened.”
The Baylor faithful erupted as the Bears took a 1-0 lead with under 10 minutes remaining in the first half.
The Bears’ offense was dominant throughout the first 45 minutes, outshooting the Bobcats 9-6 while getting four shots on goal to Texas State’s one.
“Once we got control of the game, our confidence just started to go higher,” Lenard said. “You started to see players try a few more things, take a little bit more risk, and it started to pay off.”
Hess lasered a shot that Escobar saved, but senior defender Hallie Augustyn was in position to clean up the rebound, sending the ball to the back of the net to give Baylor some insurance with a 2-0 lead.
“It was a quick little audible from the sideline, because we weren’t originally going to play that to Liv,” Lenard said. “We had talked about looking for things like that, just problem-solving in the moment, and then Liv just smashed the heck out of it.”
The Bears were back on the attack five minutes later. Junior forward Lauren Omholt worked her way past multiple defenders to get to the Texas State baseline. She threaded a pass to Hess, who laced a shot into the top left corner of the goal to secure a three-goal advantage for Baylor in the 66th minute.
The Bobcats were searching for any kind of momentum, forming multiple attacks in the Bears’ end. Senior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez held down the fort with a pair of saves in the 68th and 69th minutes.
The game cooled down from there, with only two more shots from the Bobcats in the remainder of the match. Baylor secured the commanding victory 3-0 for its first NCAA Tournament win since its quarterfinal run in 2018.
Hess continued her strong freshman campaign, leading Baylor with four shots and three on goal. Four other Bears had double-digit shots as the team finished with a 17-11 advantage.
“The last four or five games have been really challenging because teams are man-marking her, and they’re double-teaming her,” Lenard said of Hess. “She’s starting to understand better how to work under those circumstances, how to be more creative with her movement.”
If No. 1 seed Notre Dame takes care of business against UIC on Saturday, Baylor will face off against No. 4 seed Wisconsin on Thursday in South Bend, Ind.
