MORGANTOWN – The West Virginia University women’s soccer team dropped a Big 12 matchup against the visiting TCU Horned Frogs on Sunday afternoon at Dick Dlesk Soccer Stadium.
The Horned Frogs (6-3-2) controlled the match throughout and used some strong attacking play and finishing in the final third to overrun the Mountaineers (3-6-2) and head back home to Fort Worth with an impressive conference road victory.
“When a good team like TCU comes here, they’re going to capitalize on your mistakes,” WVU head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown said. “They were able to get those first two goals on mistakes that were made and we couldn’t find enough off of the kickoff in the second half to equalize.”
From the opening whistle, the visitors were pressing high up the field, sometimes with every player over midfield in the attacking half, in search of the opening goal of the game.
That goal didn’t take long to find for TCU as forward Seven Castain collected a ball inside the WVU box and rifled home a goal to the far corner of the net, giving her team a 1-0 lead just seven minutes into the game.
The Horned Frogs continued with its pressure after scoring the first goal of the game. Solid shaping and quick ball movement into open space gave the Mountaineer defense fits from the opening whistle.
“That made a huge difference early on in the game,” Izzo-Brown said of the TCU press. “They were coming with a lot of energy and strength and it was something that we couldn’t deal with very well today.”
It wasn’t until 15 minutes had come off of the clock that WVU saw its first threat to score. The ball was worked down the right side of the field before sophomore forward Taylor White found space in the box but her shot was just wide of the post.
The second goal of the game was scored just three minutes later as TCU midfielder Gracie Brian found herself 1-on-1 with WVU goalkeeper Kayza Massey and doubled the lead for her team.
Despite more positive play in the final ten minutes of the half, the Mountaineers were unable to find a goal of their own and entered the locker room at halftime trailing 2-0.
The opening ten minutes of the second half saw the Horned Frogs continuing to control the tempo of the match on offense. Castain added her second goal (TCU’s third) of the match after ten minutes played giving her team a 3-0 lead.
White broke the ice for the Mountaineers midway through the second half but another goal was conceded less than 90 seconds after she did so when Cam Lancaster fired a shot from 25 yards that found the top corner of the net. A fifth TCU goal came with five minutes left to play by Skylar Heinrich for the final result of 5-1.
The Mountaineers will hit the road for two games in the state of Texas. WVU will visit No. 14 Texas on Thursday, September 28th before traveling to Houston on October 1st.
