CORPUS CHRISTI – Tarleton pitched a shutout and Kiki Baurmann delivered the first goal for Tarleton Soccer against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in a 1-0 exhibition win.
“I’m just so proud of this group. That was a grind-it-out kind of game,” said head coach Pete Cuadrado. “Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is a really good team. They finished top four in the Southland last season and returned a lot of their team. It was tough to have a goal called back early and I think that really woke them (AMCC) up.
“You just can’t ask for a better finish and a better goal. This is a great place to start, but we still have a lot of work to do,” he continued. “There’s no such thing as an easy win at this level and I am just so proud of the heart our team showed tonight.”
Tarleton came out as the aggressor in its first-ever competition against an outside opponent as the Texans spent most of the opening half on the offensive side of the field. The Texans appeared to have scored their first goal at 38:44 when Rylee Low boomed a free kick into the box where a waiting Sydney Rouillard powered a header past the Islanders goalkeeper. An offsides call kept Tarleton off the board, however.
The teams continued to spar as the Islanders picked up their offensive presence and ended the first half with four shots compared to just one from Tarleton. Both teams had one shot on goal in the opening half with Tarleton’s coming from Avery Harr.
With time winding down nearing the 76th minute, Teeghan Dodd found a wide-open Baurmann roaming free along the left side. Baurmann pumped the brakes to catch the defender off balance, switched to the right foot and drilled the first goal in Tarleton history through the far upper 90 to put the Texans on top 1-0.
For the match, Tarleton took three shots (all on goal) while the goalkeeping combination of Mikayla Kendall and Rylie Bloomfield faced six shots from Corpus Christi and tallied three saves. Bloomfield totaled two while Kendall had one.
Tarleton will officially open the season with regular season play next Friday when Coach Cuadrado takes on his former team, North Dakota State at 7:30 p.m. in Thibodaux, Louisiana, at the Nicholls State tournament.
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