Aggie Soccer Dump Dayton

DAYTON, Ohio – The No. 6 Texas A&M Aggies notched a 3-1 road victory against the Dayton Flyers at Baujan Field on Sunday afternoon.

Playing in their final non-conference road match of the season, the Aggies featured an aggressive attack to open up a 2-0 halftime lead. The Maroon and White owned a 12-4 edge in shots and a 3-1 advantage in corner kicks in the opening stanza.

With Dayton filling the penalty box with numbers in the opening moments of the game, Texas A&M was unable to break the scoring seal in the first 15 minutes despite owning an overwhelming majority of the possession.

The Aggies were finally able to notch the icebreaker 15:32 into the half. Emily Bates slipped a through ball between two defenders just outside the penalty box finding Brittany Crabtree entering the 6-yard box where a solid knock with the inside of the right foot put the biscuit in the basket for the 1-0 lead.

Texas A&M (7-1-0) added to the lead in the 31st minute. Crabtree worked the ball down the right
side of the offensive end and found Haley Pounds with her back to goal just outside the penalty box. Pounds spun to her right to lose her marker and sprinted into the box where she had a 1-on-1 with Dayton goalkeeper Kaelyn Johns. Pounds feigned a shot to draw Johns off the line and then sent it past the sprawled out keeper on the left for her sixth goal of the season.

The Aggies kept the pressure going early in the second half, causing Johns to making five saves in the first 10 minutes. Pounds had the best opportunity of the lot, blasting a shot from 12 that sent Johns to the deck for the stop.

Dayton was able to take advantage of a free kick to cut the A&M lead to 2-1 in the 73rd minute. Nicole Waters boomed her offering into the box from 50 yards out. Ashley Campbell was able to get her head on the ball with Aggie goalkeeper Taylor Saucier coming out to corral it. The header cleared Saucier and found the feet of Alexis Kiehl just outside the six-yard box and she sent it to the back of the net for her first goal of the season.

Bates nearly found the target in the 83rd minute, ripping a shot from 16 yards that Johns was able to knock past the right post with a desperate swipe of her paw.

Janae Cousineau iced the win with 6:46 remaining in the second half. She wrangled the ball from a pair of defenders in the penalty box and unleashed a missile into the right side netting for in the insurance goal.

With the victory, head coach G Guerrieri notched his 401st career victory, passing Randy Waldrum for fifth place on the NCAA Division I all-time wins list.

The Aggies return to action on Friday as they host the Vanderbilt Commodores in a 6 pm match at Ellis Field.

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