This week, Tulsa’s women’s soccer team faced two American Athletic Conference opponents in SMU and Houston and came away with two wins.
In the earlygoing against SMU, Rachel Thun put the Golden Hurricane on top after the Mustangs attempted to clear the ball. It landed at Thun’s feet, and she sent a beautiful dipping shot past the Mustang goalkeeper from 30 yards out.
The lead didn’t last long, however, as SMU started to counterattack hard when they broke up Tulsa’s possession. Around ten minutes after Thun’s goal, one of their counterattacks succeeded, as Taylor Jackson brought the ball up the left wing, and swung it in for Gabriell Petrucelli to redirect around Courtney McKeon, the Golden Hurricane’s goalkeeper. Petrucelli’s goal knotted the score at 1–1, which it remained until halftime.
In the second half, the game continued with much of the even play that the teams had seen in the first half. Twenty minutes into the half, Kajal Parmar sent the ball into the middle for Tulsa.
Danielle Hoover beat a Mustang defender and the goalkeeper to the ball to get a slight deflection, and the ball slowly rolled into net to put Tulsa ahead 2–1.
That lead stood for the rest of the game, and the Golden Hurricane came away with the victory.
In the beginning of their game against Houston, Tulsa had a rough start. They struggled to keep possession, and the Cougars were able to push into the Golden Hurricane side of the field as a result.
After winning a corner, Houston threatened to take the lead when the corner cross came in and was shot on goal, but Roman Edwards was there for Tulsa to knock the ball away.
Tulsa’s first chance came when Tana Dake was able to put a turnaround shot on target after twenty minutes.
As the half wore on, the Golden Hurricane settled down and the game evened out. Much of the play was back-and-forth in the midfield, as neither team was able to produce many quality looks at goal.
Tulsa came out much more aggressively in the second half, which was apparent right from the start when they took the opening kick straight through the middle of the Cougars and nearly got a shot out of it.
Just three minutes into the second half, #7 crossed the ball into the middle. After the ball passed by a couple of Cougar defenders, it fell to Thun’s feet, and she booted it across the goalkeeper into the lower right corner of the goal, giving the Golden Hurricane a 1–0 lead.
Tulsa kept the pressure on for a large portion of the half, but lost energy with fifteen minutes left. Houston pressed forward, and Golden Hurricane goalkeeper Rebecca Defer was required to make a couple of diving saves to preserve the lead.
In the end, the Golden Hurricane were able to hold on, and won the 1–0 contest. They move to 11–1–1 (2–0–1 American Athletic Conference) on the season. Their next game is against USF at 6:00 in Tampa, Florida on Thursday.
