2 weeks Ago
Baylor dropped its second Big 12 match in a 1-0 loss to Arizona Thursday night at Betty Lou Mays Field. The Wildcats earned their first win as a member of the Big 12, coming out aggressive to hold the Bears without a shot in the first half. Baylor head coach Michelle Lenard noted that the Bears (5-4-1, 0-2) needed to do a better job at adjusting on the go during the first half as the Wildcats (6-2-1, 1-1) brought out a game plan different from what Baylor had scouted.
“We had a horrible first half,” Lenard said. “We were tactically mismatched, and we had trouble making adjustments on the fly and we were fortunate to get through to halftime at 0-0. But I thought we made some good adjustments at halftime, and we had a good start to the second half.
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We had a lot of good moments in the first 10 minutes but we’re just not converting those into real goals.” Baylor saw the return of junior Azul Alvarez between the posts as the goalkeeper helped keep the green and gold in the match, tying her career best with eight saves. But Arizona managed to get the ninth one past her, flooding the box on the attack following a free kick and Wildcat senior midfielder Gianna Christiansen picked up her eighth goal of the season by slipping past into the left corner.
Baylor got close to grabbing the equalizer in the 85th minute as junior forward Tyler Isgrig dribbled across from the left wing to make some space for herself in the right corner of the box as the Wildcats added pressure. Her shot got past Arizona goalie Olivia Ramey, who had five saves in the second half, but it deflected off the woodwork. “The chances I had, they weren’t really easy,” Isgrig said.
“I feel like a reflection of that, is that all my goals are not usually easy, tap-in goals. I feel like I just try to create those. We got it in that area, and they just let me try to work.
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That was the last five minutes. I feel like I tried everything I could in that moment at least.” The Bears made more opportunities for themselves in the second half but could not find the finish.
Isgrig gave Baylor its first shots of the night in the 47th minute and it took another seven minutes for senior midfielder Ashley Merrill to add another, driving a ball over the post in the 54th. “We are creating chances, though,” Lenard said. “I don’t think we created enough in that game, but obviously, we’re in there.
We had a couple of good opportunities. And we’re in spaces where chances should be coming from and then taking too long, taking one more touch or we’re holding the ball a second too long, getting it blocked or getting it cut out, just a lack of urgency in the right moments. But some of it is finishing.
If you count the last few games in a row, we missed some point-blank chances. So, it’s a combination of both.” Following the goal, Baylor began to add pressure offensively as Isgrig and graduate midfielder Kai Hayes put a series of shots on target which al ended up being stopped by Ramsey, although Hayes’s shot in the 67th minute seemed to have crossed the line.
“I couldn’t see (if it was over the line),” Lenard said of Hayes’s shot. “I don’t know how it didn’t go in but as far as knowing for sure if it did, I can’t say until I got back and look at film.” In the first half, the Wildcats put four shots on goal which resulted in four saves for Alvarez.
Between the 27th and 32nd minutes, Arizona tested the Austin native as Nicole Dallin attacked during a scrum in the box. In the 34th, Sami Baytosh drilled one straight up for Alvarez to smack away and over the goal. “Azul adds a lot of stability in the back, for sure, and I have a lot of confidence in her because they did have a lot of good chances and she made some really good saves,” Isgrig said.
“As a team, we can’t put all this pressure on Azul to make all these saves. I mean, the one that scored, there wasn’t much she could have done — they’re inside the box.” As the Wildcats head up to Fort Worth to face TCU, who grabbed a 4-1 win over BYU at home Thursday night, Baylor will welcome Houston at 1 p.
m. Sunday. The Cougars fell 2-0 to Arizona State to give the Sun Devils their first win as a Big 12 program as well.
“It’s been the same thing for us over the last few games,” Lenard said, “so regardless of who’s coming up next, we’ve got to finish, we’ve got to continue to create better opportunities, we’ve got to be able to adjust tactically a little bit more. I’m disappointed in myself and that we’re not more prepared or we’re not able to adjust tactically on the fly. When we can get to halftime, we can make those changes but we’re struggling to do it during the game and that’s a big problem because a lot of our opponents, including Houston, are potentially going to change things or throw something new at us.
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