The Bearkat women’s soccer team continued their strong play over the weekend as they defeated both Nicholls State and Southeastern Louisiana on their way to a 2-0 Southland Conference record, the most wins in program history.
Under new head coach Tom Brown, Sam Houston State has shattered many records and is working on both a seven game win streak and a shutout streak after the weekend road trip in Louisiana.
“I think the big thing is any time you can go on the road and pick up wins, that’s huge for [you]. I think every team always comes against some difficult road trips. It said a lot about our players that they were able to go and get two wins in two very different types of games,” said Brown.
The first game of the weekend was against SLC opponent Nicholls State, who were 2-7 heading into the contest, and saw senior forward Raquel Bueno score her first career hat trick Friday night.
Wasting little time, Sam Houston jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Bueno scored off a cross by freshman Deana Long 8:45 into the game.
Soon after the first goal, Sam Houston sophomore Luana Miessa would score from inside the goal box at the 20:23 mark, pushing the Bearkats up 2-0 in the first half. Sophomore April Lozano would be credited with the assist.
At the 75:25 mark, Lozano would tally another assist as Bueno scored from the top of the goal box, pushing the lead to 3-0 over the Colonels. Four minutes later, Bueno would score again off of an assist from Miessa and complete her hat trick as the Bearkats won 4-0 over Nicholls State.
The three goals of the night for Bueno would prove to be historic as she now lays claim to the most career goals in Sam Houston’s six year soccer program history, with 21 goals.
Brown said, “I think that [Bueno] was taking a lot of fouls and abuse from the Nicholls State team. Early on, she got the first goal that was just kind of a real snap finish, but I thought it showed a lot of character that she was able to deal with the constant fouling and that stuff and come in and score two late, to ice the game for us.”
The second game of the weekend was against SLC opponent Southeastern Louisiana, who were 6-2-1 before the game on Sunday afternoon. Despite being outshot by the Lions 3-10 and only forcing one save compared to the seven forced by the Lions, the Bearkats managed to hold strong defensively and pull out a gritty 1-0 victory.
“I think having played four games in ten days, you know the players are tired,” Brown said. “I thought at the end of the first we were not playing well at all and I think we were able to get refocused at half time. We didn’t create a lot of chances but we took advantage of the one or two that we did. Defensively, we’ve obviously been solid all year long and I thought we had a solid defensive effort from our team again. They had ten shots but it wasn’t ten quality shots and so I think defensive wise our team is doing well.”
The lone goal of the game was scored in the second half as Luana Miessa crossed the ball to April Lozano as she quickly shot it past freshman goalie Lacey Bockhaus at the 64:34 mark.
With the two wins, Sam Houston improves to a school best 7-2 record, with a 2-0 SLC record, also a school best. The Bearkats have not allowed a goal in the last 659 minutes of play, and carry a seven game winning streak back home to face rival Stephen F. Austin State University.
The Bearkats and Lumberjacks, who stand 5-5 and 2-0 in the SLC, will face off Friday at 7 p.m. at Pritchett Field.