LAKE CHARLES-- McNeese State's women's soccer team didn't get the result they were looking for here Friday night in their home opener against Baylor. The Cowgirls, playing their first ever home night game fell 4-0 to its Big 12 opponent who improved to 2-0-2 on the year.
"Baylor is a good team that works extremely hard. I thought they did a great of pressuring and challenging every ball tonight. They have tremendous depth when you look at the number of players they were able to put into the game," said head coach Scooter Savoie.
Sophomore Megan Manus led the Cowgirls with three shots and junior Alana Clark attempted two while sophomore goalie Cassandra Read was busy for most of the night manning the goal. Read was credited with 10 saves in 90 minutes.
Baylor got single goals from four different players with the first coming off a penalty kick from Chelsea Geller in the 28th minute. McNeese would hold Baylor to that single goal for the half but the Bears would score three more in the second half.
"The penalty kick was unfortunate. It put us in a difficult position where we had to battle up hill the rest of the night. I thought we continued to battle well after that to keep ourselves in a good position with the game at 1-0 at the half."
Hanna Gilmore scored her goal in the 64th minute on a header that ricocheted off the head of a Cowgirl before Gilmore scored from the left side for a 2-0 Baylor lead. Gilmore would collect her third point of the game on an assist five minutes later. Larissa Campos gave Baylor a 3-0 lead in the 69th minute off Gilmore's assist. McNeese gave up one more goal in the 85th minute on a goal by Emily Bush that just went over the outreached hands of Read.
"Despite the result on the score board, I believe we proved ourselves to be a good team tonight. We responded somewhat in the second half by creating more scoring chances for ourselves. We created five corners and several fouls in their end that gave us legitmate chances to score. We are okay with where our team is at this point in the season because they have found a way to get stronger and better each time we have stepped on the field."
McNeese (0-3-1) will host Alcorn State at 1 p.m. Sunday. Sunday's game has several activities taking place. Ten minutes prior to the game, Kamryn Koch, who will be honored as McNeese's 2008-09 Athlete of the Year at Saturday's football game, will have her jersey retired.
At halftime, the parapokes will make their entrance on the field and following the game, the Cowgirls will conduct a youth clinic.
"Sunday should be a great day for our organization as we take on Alcorn state and will retire the jersey of one of our former student-athletes as well as host a youth clinic folliwing the game."
Courtesy: Kirk Meche
