Baylor Out-Battled by Arizona, Falls 1-0
WACO, Texas — Baylor Soccer (5-4-1, 0-2) dropped a second straight game 1-0 to start Big 12 play, this time to the visiting Arizona Wildcats (6-2-1, 1-1) on a 59th-minute goal by Gianna Christiansen. The Bears are now winless in their last four games.
After getting out-matched and out-shot in the first half, the Green and Gold were lucky to enter the break tied 0-0. Much of this was thanks to senior goalkeeper Azul Alvarez, who returned from injury for this game and made eight saves. That ties a career-high for the TCU transfer.
“She kept us in it,” said Baylor head coach Michelle Lenard of Alvarez, “She made some big saves. I'd like her not to have to make as many big saves, but she's got a great presence, and she did what she needed to do.”
The Bears made a contest out of it in the second half, but they just could not get the ball across the line quite literally.
Before and after Christiansen found the bottom left corner of Alvarez’s goal for Arizona in the 59th minute, the Bears put serious pressure on the Wildcats defense and keeper.
With the score at 1-0 Arizona in the 67th minute, graduate midfielder Kai Hayes looked to have scrambled an equalizer home in a hectic Arizona box. However, the decision was no-goal. The ball was judged to have not completely crossed the goal line.
Then with just five minutes to go, junior forward Tyler Isgrig sent a shot from the top of the box on the right side, fast and low to the left post. It rattled the woodwork but bounce back into play rather than into the back of the net.
The difference between a loss and a draw or a win was inches.
"We're in a bit of a scoring drought here trying to figure that out,” said Coach Lenard after the game, “I mean, I don't know how much closer we can get than hitting the post and goal line saves.”
Arizona did earn and deserve their result on the night though, playing the overall superior 90 minutes and peppering the Baylor goal with 21 shots.
“We had a horrible first half,” said Coach Lenard, “We were tactically mismatched, and we had trouble making adjustments on the fly... They were better than us today, but we had a lot of good moments in the first maybe 10 minutes [of the second half], and we're just not converting those into into real goals.”
The Bears might feel their backs getting closer to the wall now with an 0-2 start in conference play likely taking their No. 36 RPI ranking down a peg. Arizona sat at No. 58 heading into this contest.
Both conference championship goals and NCAA tournaments are still alive and well, but Baylor Soccer will need to get back to winning quickly.
And the Houston Cougars (3-4-1, 0-2), who come to Waco on Sunday, are a great opportunity for the Bears to do just that.