In the last home games of her college career, Kim Harvey led theMustangs to the WAC Championship with four goals in twogames. The tournament, which lasted from Thursday to Saturdayat Westcott Field, marked the third consecutive time that SMU haswon the WAC tournament and the fifth win in the past sevenyears.
The senior from Garland had a hat trick in the 3-0 semifinaldefeat of UTEP and scored the game winner with under a minute leftas SMU defeated Rice 2-1. Voted the MVP of the tournament, Harveywas named to the All-Tournament squad.
The four goals brought Harvey’s total to 27 on theseason. Nationally, she ranks fourth in goal scoring.
The title gave the Mustangs an automatic bid to the NCAAtournament where they will face the 23rd-ranked Texas A&MAggies (12-5-2) in first-round play 7:30 p.m. on Friday in CollegeStation.
The Aggies have eliminated SMU from the previous two NCAAtournaments and defeated the Mustangs 3-1 in their only meeting ofthe season. Friday’s winner will face the winner of theStephen F. Austin-Duke match in College Station on Sunday.
In the WAC semifinal Friday night, Harvey opened, scoring in theseventh minute when she appeared to bank a free kick off a Minerdefender and into the far post. SMU didn’t look back anddominated play the rest of the night.
Harvey scored again at the beginning of the second half when shevolleyed a badly cleared ball over a fallen Kyla Clark. Shefinished off her hat trick in the 77th minute when she put apenalty kick into the low left netting.
All three goals were unassisted.
“The first goal was a shot I’ve been working on inpractice,” Harvey said, “but the second one was morelike half the goals I’ve scored this season. I was justin the right place at the right time.”
UTEP, who lost 2-0 to the Mustangs on Oct. 17, played itscharacteristic physical game, but couldn’t match SMU’soffensive rhythm. They were outshot 20-8, but the Miners out-fouledthe Mustangs 22-9.
The final, on Saturday night saw the Mustangs take on asurprising Rice team who beat a highly favored Hawaii team 4-1 inthe semifinals after winning its quarterfinal match against FresnoState 3-0 on Thursday night.
The Owls, who lost at SMU 1-0 earlier this year, came in at thetop of their game.
“They’ve improved a lot since our last game,”Mustang coach John Cossaboon said. “They’replaying the best soccer they’ve played all year.”
SMU seemed to jump on Rice early and capitalized on its chancesin the 22nd minute when, after a hard Olivia O’Rear shotdeflected off the crossbar, sophomore Morgan Field jumped on therebound and put it past All-Tournament goalkeeper LaurenShockley.
The next third of the game belonged to the Owls, who used theAll-Tournament combination of forward Ashley Anderson andmidfielder Sarah Yoder to pressure the Mustang defense. They wererewarded for their effort in the 69th minute when Anderson lofted aball that SMU goalkeeper Amanda Clark misjudged. Clark appeared torecover, but Anderson was able to get a foot on the ball and knockit into the net before Clark could completely control it.
“Our mentality at the time was just ‘get [the ball]out of our end, at any cost,”‘ freshman Adria Campbellsaid. “Their goal was kind of a wake up call to us thatthe game was far from over, and that we needed to keep passing tofeet.”
The game was fairly evenly played for the rest of the match,with both teams having good chances to take the lead.
The game seemed destined for overtime until All-Tournamentfreshman O’Rear made a beautiful run down the left flank,taking three defenders with her before cutting the ball back toCampbell who was standing at the penalty spot.
Campbell, with her back to the goal, passed up a shot andflicked the ball through to Harvey who delayed for a second beforeslamming the ball far past a diving Shockley.
“It was just a classic three-person combination,”Cossaboon said. “There’s just no better way to end our[regular] season.”
Harvey agreed.
“It was so perfect to end that way,” Harvey said.”Adria was so unselfish. Our team has been like that thewhole year.”
The other All-Tournament selections were Erin MacCallum, JillHeinemann and Ashley Watson from SMU, Erin Droeger and CaitlinCurrie of Rice and Kaletia Roberts from UTEP.
