The women’s soccer team brought its record to 14-2 (6-0WAC play) Wednesday night with a 4-1 win over UNT. SMU can clinchthe WAC regular season title by winning at least one of its finalthree games.
Adria Campbell opened the scoring in the 5th minute of play whenshe volleyed a Kim Harvey deflection into the net. The assist movedHarvey into sole possession of 10th in the WAC career assistrankings.
UNT tied the game 1-1 when Melissa Chapman took advantage of ascramble after a corner kick. She was able to slide the ball by SMUgoalkeeper Amanda Clark.
The Mean Green maintained the pressure for the rest of the half,but was unable to score the go-ahead goal despite dominating theplay.
SMU midfielder Jill Heinemann said that UNT was able to takeadvantage of SMU’s early intensity.
“We’d been working so hard in the first thirtyminutes,” said Heinemann. “When you run that hard,there’s always going to be a little bit of a let down. We letour focus down a little, and they capitalized on that.”
“[UNT is] a good team and good teams sometimes take overparts of the game,” head coach John Cassaboon said.”Overall, though, we shut them down.”
Freshman Olivia O’Rear scored the game-winning goal threeminutes into the second half when she put the Mustangs up 2-1.
Campbell then scored her second of the evening in the 78thminute, when she headed a Jill Heinemann pass past the UNTgoalkeeper.
Heinemann rounded out the scoring with an impressive goal off ofa direct kick in the 83rd minute. The junior curled a 35-yard freekick into the upper corner of the net.
“[Assistant Coach] Stewart Brown had told me to just shootit, so I just went ahead and took the shot,” she said.
Cossaboon was pleased with the game.
“We’re getting closer and closer to playing thestyle of game we want,” he said. “We need to keeprefining our entire team defense, but everything from thegoalkeeper forward is starting to work.”
UNT’s biggest threats were Marilyn Marin and Melinda Pina,who had combined to score 32 of their teams 49 goals so far thisseason. The Mustang’s back four held the two scoreless.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game,” AmandaJordan said. “We didn’t have a specific plan to dealwith [Marin and Pina], but we knew we had to keep [them] in frontof us.”
SMU will travel to Nevada and Boise State to round out WAC playand then travel to Kentucky before returning to Westcott field forthe WAC Championships.
