Houston Baptist Uses Penalty Kicks to Advance to Championship Match
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BEAUMONT, Texas – In the semifinals of the 2014 Southland Conference Soccer Tournament, No. 3 Houston Baptist defeated No. 2 Sam Houston in penalty kicks 4-2 to advance to the championship match at Lamar Soccer Complex on the campus of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.
Sam Houston State found the back of the next in the 28th minute when Ashley Alonzo scored to give the Bearkats a 1-0 lead with an assist from Caitlyn Schwartz.
A scramble after a free kick for Houston Baptist created an opportunity as Ellee Hall scored with less than six minutes to play in the second half to tie the game 1-1. Neither team was able to score in the final minutes before heading into overtime.
After two scoreless overtimes the teams lined up for penalty kicks.
Conner Ryder started the shootout with a low shot of the left side to give Houston Baptist the momentum as they made their first three shots. The Huskies won the penalty kicks in a 4-2 battle.
Houston Baptist will advance to the finals for the first time in school history after joining the Southland Conference in 2013. The Huskies will have a shot at the title Sunday at 1:05 p.m. on ESPN3.
Sam Houston State lost their third semifinal match in four years to end the season 9-8-2.
2014 Southland Soccer Tournament Post-Game Quotes
Match 1 – #2 Sam Houston State vs. #3 Houston Baptist
Houston Baptist Head Coach Misty Jones
On having young women like that to carry you
“You know it’s a fantastic group, the girls are so hard working and they never give up. For us we put ourselves in overtime I think eight times, I’m not sure, we would really have to look at the stats and we’ve played a lot of overtime games. They pulled through; I was a bit concerned since we went into overtime. Last night we played almost 120 minutes so I knew fatigue could possibly be a factor. We just told the girls going in you just have to believe you can do it, even if you don’t think you can that you can. I was very proud of them, they fought, they fought hard. We didn’t have our best first half but the second half and into overtime I thought we really played hard and well. Sam Houston State was a fantastic team, a great opponent. It’s almost unfortunate we had to go to penalties to finish a game like that but I’m very proud of the girls.”
On how you prepare for postseason games like this
“As the season winds down we start thinking about that into the postseason. We start practicing penalties; we practiced a lot of penalties last week and this week and in fact even before we got on the bus to come here on Wednesday. It was raining at home and we had practiced and we took penalties and that’s basically what we did. We took penalties in the rain. We knew we wanted to be prepared if it came down to this. We didn’t want it to be a lack of preparation and the girls came through.”
Houston Baptist Goalkeeper Patty Walrath
On knowing that the penalty kicks determined if your season continued or not
“Well actually the entire season we’ve been working on having to keep mentally tough. We actually read the book ‘Soccer Tough’ the entire season. We read it chapter by chapter and that actually helped me a lot because as a freshman I would have never been confident enough. Now senior year I wanted to end it right and it wasn’t about to be tonight.”
On the flow of the game and getting the late goal to push it into overtime
“Well I men we knew it was going to be one of those games that we have to come back from behind because it was a miscommunication goal so we didn’t want to end it on that. Our team has been doing really well and coming back from behind this season and nothing different today.”
On going to championship Sunday
“Yes, especially coming off the season we had last year. We were in the bottom three and we came out in the top three and now we’re in the championship, it’s unreal.”
Sam Houston State Head Coach Tom Brown
On opening thoughts of the game
“You know I’m really disappointed with the way the game went. We created some really good chances and our players didn’t get the finish tonight. I thought that Houston Baptist did a great job of putting us under pressure and we just didn’t have the players tonight that could step up and hold the ball for us and create chances, or create enough chances. I think early on, probably within that first 20 to 25 minutes, besides the goal we had two more great chances that we just couldn’t get put away. You know, when those things happen you’re not going to win games.
On feeling like you had to get that second goal after the early goal and trying to defend the lead
“Yeah, that second goal would definitely be very important. You know we talked about it at halftime that it was important to get that goal; you know really kind of put it to them. I think a late goal like that would have really put them under a little bit more duress. But we couldn’t hold on to the ball and I thought they did a great job of continually putting us under pressure and our players just didn’t respond to that tonight.”