Box Score CANYON – The Wayland Baptist women's soccer team ran into some less than ideal circumstances Thursday in its final preconference match of the season. The Pioneers, originally scheduled to play a home match at 7 p.m., were forced to take on NCAA Division-II opponent West Texas A&M on the road two hours earlier due to inclement weather.
The Pioneers (0-6-1) ultimately fell to WT, 4-0, after a late second-half surge from the Lady Buffs.
Wayland played a good, solid defensive first half, holding West Texas (2-3) to just one goal, but the second half got away from the Pioneers, particularly late in the second half.
"In the first half we played good as a team," head coach
Shiloh Posey said. "(WT) has two really good kids on their team and we did a good job of shutting them down. We didn't give away too many corners in the first half either. We did some really positive things.
"In the second half we were a little tired, both physically and mentally. The first 10 or 15 minutes is pivotal because a 1-0 game is a lot different than a 2-0 game."
Just as Posey alluded to, the Lady Buffs picked up their second goal of the match just under 10 minutes in to the second half.
Kayrn Forbes took a shot from 30 yards out which WBU
Bailey Stengler saved, but Emily Krenek picked up the ball off the deflection and chipped it in for her third goal of the season.
With the match seemingly out of reach, the Lady Buffs tacked on two more goals, one in the 84
th minute and one with 50 seconds left to play, giving WT a 4-0 win.
Even though the Pioneers played solid defense for the majority of the match, their Achilles heel was once again their lack of offense.
Wayland took just four shots, one in the first half and three in the second, compared to 16 from the Lady Buffs.
"Somewhere along the way we have to score," Posey said. "That's the bottom line. We're working our tails off trying to get that done."
Despite the loss, Posey did see some positives from his squad Thursday.
"We had really good effort all over the field," he said. "The girls played hard and they created opportunities to score. We just have to find a way to capitalize on those opportunities."
The good news for the Pioneers is that a whole new season starts up Sept. 27 when they take on Oklahoma City in their first Sooner Athletic Conference match of the year. The trick will be putting a tough pre-conference schedule behind them and moving forward.
"We have nine days off before we play Oklahoma City so we're going to try to get healed up and get our minds back on the right track," Posey said. "We put together a tough preseason schedule so that it could get us ready for conference. Now is a pivotal moment because we're going see where our heads and concentration is at. This is where the rubber really meets the road, and we're going to find out if we want to keep going or not.
"I'm looking forward to conference and I think we have a good opportunity to go out and prove people wrong. We were picked to finish sixth, but I know we have more in us than that. We want to go out and do whatever we can to prove the polls wrong."
