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Tie preserves HSU's long conference unbeaten streak
The Hardin-Simmons women's soccer team extended its American Southwest Conference unbeaten streak to 100 games Saturday, but it didn't happen the way the Cowgirls would have liked.
On a day when offensive pressure was dictated by a heavy wind, HSU had to settle for a 0-0 tie against ASC rival Texas-Dallas at the HSU Soccer Complex.
The Cowgirls, who haven't dropped a regular season league match since falling to UT-Dallas in their conference opener in 2000, are now 97-0-3 in the last 100 regular season conference games.
Not that it seems to have made much of an impression on coach Marcus Wood, who says he's more concerned with keeping his players focused on the immediate task at hand.
"It's actually something we don't talk about because we want them focusing on one game at a time," Wood said. "I'm sure (HSU's) sports information (office that promotes Cowgirl athletics) loves it, but we always talk about our next game and how to beat each opponent."
And HSU does, on occasion, lose -- just not often, and not to conference opponents. With Saturday's tie, the Cowgirls move to 6-2-3 on the season with a 5-0-1 record in ASC play. HSU returns to action Thursday with a road game against Louisiana College before going to Clinton, Miss., on Saturday to take on Mississippi College, which leads the conference with a 5-0 league mark, including a 1-0 win over UT-Dallas.
Wins next week would stretch HSU's nation's-best conference streak past the century mark, but Wood said that's not a concern.
"With the streak, we've always just talked about one game at a time," he said. "We're focused on one game every week and somehow we've done one game at a time well for a long time.
All three ties during the streak have come against the UT-Dallas Comets.
Since the beginning of HSU's streak, the Cowgirls have gone 8-3-1 against UT-Dallas including ASC Tournament meetings. Ten of those 12 games were either ties or were decided by one goal.
The Cowgirls came into Saturday's meeting expecting a tough match, and that's exactly what they got.
"The last 10 times we've played that team, eight of them have gone into overtime," Wood said. "So every time, we expect overtime with them. It's always a battle and we know every ball's going to be hotly contested. That's exactly what we expected."
With a heavy wind coming out of the north, the game became a tale of two halves. The Comets had the wind the first half and took what few opportunities they received. And in the second half, when the Cowgirls had the wind at their backs, UT-Dallas was content to drop the majority of its players back to defend.
"What they have is a great defensive team, and they know exactly what they've got," Wood said. "They have two really quick forwards that are good in the counter attack. They're always looking to do that and when you add a 30 mph wind to it, it gets pretty easy to make the decision that you're going to defend and counter attack."
That strategy worked out well for the Comets, who held HSU to 18 shots, just seven of which were on net.
"When they had the wind, they were content with just dropping in and kind of putting everyone in their box so we couldn't get through them," said HSU forward Amy Kuykendall, who led the Cowgirls with two shots on goal.
The Cowgirls still had chances in the second half to score and potentially win the game. But they couldn't put anything past UT-Dallas goalkeeper Andrea Jones.
The two overtime periods went much like the first two halves. Offense was limited for both teams as they split eight shots evenly.
UT-Dallas had perhaps the best scoring chance with 5:21 to play in the second extra time period, but HSU's All-American goalie Christi Carr made a diving save to preserve her fourth shutout of the season.
"Christi Carr is the best in the business," Wood said. "She's one of the best keepers I've seen and we feel very comfortable with her in the back. We know that she's always capable of putting a shutout up against good opponents."
The HSU defense held the Comets to just 11 shots and four shots on goal. Carr made every save to back the Cowgirls' strong defensive effort.
"A shutout is a shutout, so we did our job defensively," she said. "There were a couple of scary moments, but we took care of them just fine. As long as you get that shutout that's always our first priority. The goal will come if it will, but the shutout is always our first priority."




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