Jess McDow and Kyleigh Cox
I have to start with an apology on this one. This is only half a recap. It’s not my fault (I say quickly shifting the
blame.) I don’t know why the Aggie
Athletics Department scheduled this match an hour before the Aggie Volleyball match against rival
UTEP. It seems to me they could have set the time
of the soccer at least an hour earlier to accommodate fans (like me) who wanted
to see both.
I also have incomplete recaps of Aggie Soccer’s last two
road games. They lost in Idaho 4-0 to Boise State, whom the Aggies have played here (9-9-18). At the same site, they then beat Idaho State, 2-1. So far, the Aggies’
four goals have been scored by four different players.
While I was waiting to leave, NBC finally decided to show a NASCAR
race instead of putting it on cable. Of
course, I couldn’t watch more than the opening laps. Rangers
baseball on the radio was canceled for an NFL game. And, Mexican TV wasn’t showing any MLB this weekend either. I called Ron and he was unable to come today
again. Oh, well. Not everything works out.
I parked by the Pan-Am
Center and walked over to the Soccer
Complex. It took six minutes. I timed it.
It was important to know long it would take me to get back for the
volleyball game. There was a smell of
burning plastic when I got there. I
should mention it was over 95 degrees with humidity. Perhaps my umbrella was melting. There were clouds in the distance, but that
wasn’t going to help for this upcoming hour in the sun.
I had the umbrella partly in case I got rained on later,
like yesterday, but mostly for shade.
I left my seat and cushion at home, figuring an hour on the metal seats
wasn’t worth the weight to carry them.
So, it was extra uncomfortable sitting there. After collecting a program and a cup of
courtesy water (thank God), I went to the grandstand. It was just short of nearly deserted. Between the heat, the volleyball conflict,
and the NFL starting up this weekend, this wasn’t entirely unexpected. I think it was me, Aggie parents, and several
Texas State Bobcat fans.
Actually, there may have been more of them than Aggie
fans. Like their Softball fans (2-16-19), Bobcat fans had a cheer to start the match. Both teams were in slightly different shades
of crimson during warm-ups, but the Aggies changed to their whites for the
match. There were no kids available as
ball boys and girls. Neither were there
Aggie Softball players, freshman Aggie Volleyball players, or Aggie Volleyball
assistant coaches available. (Check
here to get the joke.) Some Aggie
Sports Marketing interns were drafted.
They were not clearly not thrilled.
They didn’t sign up for this crap on a hot, sweaty day. A few fans, some with dogs (including a
couple of cute wiener dogs), were seated under the trees at the north end of
the field. They, at least, looked cool
in the heat.
First (and only) Half (for this recap)
I am too taking this seriously. I got two-and-half pages of notes here. I actually thought I’d only be devoting a
paragraph to this as part of my volleyball recap. I overwrote.
Right before the opening kick.
Aggie Hannah Leitner waved
from the field to a friend that had just come in. Hey, they do notice people in the stands.
The Aggies started off aggressively and got a corner kick
at 43’ left in the half. Unfortunately,
there wasn’t a whole lot of Aggie offense after that for a while. It was quiet enough in the stands (from the
lack of fans) to hear Dmitri Fong in
the Aggie goal barking orders to the team.
That’s the Dmitri we all love. (How
bad was the crowd? I don’t even think
her mom was there.) We could also hear Coach Baarts yelling at her and the
other players from the other side of the field.
Like I said, quiet. The parents
of the girls did shout out some encouragement, which wasn’t as obnoxious as it
has been some years.
42’ here was a wakeup call. Dmitri kicked out a ball that flew right into
the stands about four feet from me. The
ball hit the edge of the benches and bounced right back on field. That kick had some heat on it. The Bobcats had a couple of corners at 40’
and 39’, which was keeping Dmitri busy.
What looked like a tweener girl came in with a friend. She had two huge tats on her arm, nearly a
full sleeve. Does this chick have no
parents? (I thought there was a legal
age limit for getting tattoos, or was I misjudging her age?)
38’ another Bobcat corner, no damage. 36’ a weak attack was broken up at the Aggie
net. Dogs were barking loudly there at
the trees. 35’ the Aggies managed to get
into the opposing end. Jess McDow kicked a roller from outside
the Texas State box. 32’ Corey Kizer hit the post on a
kick. An immediate follow-up attack was
also deflected away. Right after, Shea O’Connor was body tackled to the
ground. No call.
The action went back to the Aggie end. 28’ Dmitri caught a high bouncer. Right back to the other end, 27’ Shea
received a good pass on a breakaway near the Texas State goal. It was ruled offsides. A parent yelled out, “V-A-R.” I think from watching the Women’s World Cup, that’s the video
play review system, which I don’t think would have applied to an offsides call
where a goal wasn’t scored.
Dmitri and Coach Baarts were getting really vocal
now. 25’ yet another Bobcat corner. 23’ Dmitri dove to block a wide kick. A defensive lapse had let an attacker get
close. The coach was screaming. 22’ and another corner. 21’ Emma
Smith stripped a Bobcat attacker.
She found Shea near the Bobcat goal, who attempted a header. 20’ hydration break. I would have got up myself for a refill, but I
was too busy melting.
16’ Jody Hernandez
had subbed in and took a long shot that hit the Texas State crossbar. Right back downfield, 15’ Dmitri caught a
long shot from the wing. 14’ a Bobcat
attacker was only faced by a lone defender and took a wide shot. 12’ out at midfield, Jody, shortest player on
the Aggies, and the shortest player on the Bobcats took each other out at the
ankles. The Bobcat player gave Jody a
friendly pat after getting up.
Now the Texas State attacks were getting coordinated. 11’ they had a great centering pass in front
of the goal. The shot just went
wide. On the near side of the field, a
magpie (actually I have no idea what kind of bird it was) trotted out on to the
field, bobbing its head. It started
feeding on worms until encroaching play chased it off. The brave bird then hung out around the Texas
State goal before flying off.
8’ Texas State repeated their previous attack with another
beautiful pass. Dmitri stopped a roller
in front of the net. 5’ it had to happen
eventually. A wing attack took a high,
hard bounce. Dmitri seemed to briefly
have it, but it went through her hands into the goal. Haley
Groff made it 1-0 Texas
State. Their fans did their special
cheer, “Eat’um up! Go Cats go!” I have to admit, it was well done.
With under five minutes to go, I checked the time. I’d decided beforehand that I was going to
have to leave with 15 minutes to the top of the hour. Time was up.
I got a refill on the water and strode quickly out of the stadium. The guy running the concessions saw me,
“Going to the volleyball?” What a
mindreader.
The first half stats I had were Aggies: 0 goals, 1 corner,
1 shot on goal; Bobcats: 1 goal, 5 corners, 2 shots on goal. Later during the volleyball game, I asked
Danny for an update. He told me it was
1-1 in overtime. It went to a second OT
without a resolution. 1-1 draw final. I had to find out later that it was Shea O’Connor who scored for the Aggies,
her second goal of the year. Dmitri Fong had 6 saves for the game. In the postgame report, the Aggies stopped
two point-blank shots in the second OT.
My goodness. This team may have
it together defensively.
I’m not the person for soccer analysis (or any other
sport, but really not soccer). The
Bobcats were 4-0 coming into this game, so I’ll say they’re not a bad
team. (I’m not sure if any of their
opponents were good.) [Edit: the Bobcats
are favored to win the Sunbelt
Conference.] I’m going to tentatively
call this a “good” tie, like the game against Wyoming. I think they’re
showing progress. We’ll see how it goes
against rivals UTEP and UNM up next on the schedule.
What’s not progressing is Aggie Sports scheduling. Soccer already canceled one game last week
and had this game cross-scheduled with volleyball. I found out from Ron over the phone last
night that they also just canceled next Sunday’s game. I don’t think this will be an NCAA issue for
the program unless there’s another cancellation, but circumstances beyond their
control could cause that to happen (weather, travel, anything). This doesn’t even include volleyball’s two
cross-scheduling issues with football.
It just looks bad. Okay,
hopefully I’ll have a full recap for the next game.
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