Aggie Soccer Extends Shutout Streak to Five Matches in 0-0 Draw vs. Brown

(Source: Russell James/Texas A&M Athletics)
(Source: Russell James/Texas A&M Athletics)

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The No. 13 Texas A&M Aggies and Brown Bears played to a 0-0 draw after 110 minutes of action Sunday evening at Ellis Field.

The Aggies recorded their fifth consecutive shutout, tying the second-longest string in school history. The Maroon & White had a run of seven consecutive shutouts in 2012 as Jordan Day tied the SEC record for consecutive clean sheets (Sept. 2-23). In 2016, the Aggies posted five consecutive shutouts from August 28 to September 16.

The Maroon & White were unable to take advantage of huge advantages in shots (21-4), shots-on-goal (6-1) and corner kicks (13-4) in the match as Brown’s retreated troops defended the bunker.

Freshman goalkeeper Shantel Hutton recorded her fifth consecutive shutout, extending her scoreless string to 529:55 minutes. Hutton tallied one huge diving save with eight minutes left in regulation, on a shot by Star White. The backline rotation of Briana AlstonJordan HillGrace PiperKarlina Sample and Callyn Walton was stout again, only giving up four shots and one shot-on-goal.

The offense had a several opportunities at knocking one in the back of the net, but Asdis Halldorsdottir came the closest. The Iceland product shot a rocket from six yards off of a cross, that was eaten up and saved at the lower right corner of the goal in the 64th minute.

The Maroon & White (4-0-2) remains undefeated through six matches for the second consecutive season, while the Bears are (3-0-1).

UP NEXT
The Aggies return to action Thursday in Provo, Utah, with an 8 p.m. match against the No. 10 BYU Cougars.

TEXAS A&M QUOTES
Head Coach G Guerrieri
On the match…
“I’m disappointed that we didn’t get the win. We missed 15 shots, and that’s what happens a lot of times. You have to give credit to the other team. They kept 10 players behind the ball the whole night, their goalkeeper made some good saves, but for the most part we missed 15 shots. They came here to get that, and they leave here with what they were looking for. So, it’s disappointing for us. I’m not upset with the intensity that we came out with, especially in the second half and in the overtime periods. It’s a point for us. It’s a draw. It doesn’t feel like it should, because we feel like we should’ve won the game.”

On what this means moving forward against BYU…
“It’s just another game. BYU will be extraordinarily difficult, going and playing at their place with the crowd and the altitude. They’re undefeated and feeling good. They just smashed their rivals last Friday night, which is huge. They know and remember us from beating them 2-0 last year in a game that was super-duper close. It was a game that could’ve gone either way. On that night we finished our chances, unlike tonight. We’re going to have to get this team to improve our quality. We’re going to have to really battle there to get a result.”

On what they could’ve done to finish better…
“We have to put the ball on frame. There were some really well struck balls, like with Taylor Ziemer hitting a couple screamers. However, if they’re over the goal, they might as well try to hit Reed Arena. We’ll work on it. It’s still very early in the season. We’re only three weeks into a long season, and we can do better. The good thing is we have the quality in this team to do it. It just wasn’t there tonight.”

Senior Midfielder Grace Piper
On team’s performance tonight…
“I think you learn something from every game, this was definitely a humbling experience. We can’t find ourselves going into a game too over confident, which I don’t think we did tonight. I think we were flat in the first half and played back and we can’t do that next week against BYU or we’ll find ourselves down before we know it. We’ll need to come out and play like we did in the second half and overtime tonight.”

On next week’s game against BYU…
“We know we beat them last year, so they’ll be looking for revenge. We want to keep the undefeated streak going, so this will be a big game for us.”

Sophomore Defender Karlina Sample
On tonight’s game…
“I think we played really hard. That was one of our better games we keeping possession. We had a lot of chances, but we just couldn’t finish them. Something has got to change next week so we can beat BYU and the rest of the teams coming up.”

On what Brown did to stop the offense…
I think they were really good at knowing our two top scorers. They were marking Ally Watt really well and their team was screaming don’t let number 5 (Taylor Ziemer) shoot. They really knew our top scorers and what we had and what we were ready to give them. They were prepared for that. I think it was more of what we didn’t do more than what they did to us. Things are going to change this week.

Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics

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