I was able to catch the game tonight at Ellis (first of the Spring) and I was not expecting much from the team as losing Lopez and McCain was a gut punch to what we had in Fall and we have a really bad loss at Rice several weeks ago. I had read a lot about how good TCU was and their gaudy stat lines, but it was all against Big 12 competition.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how well we matched up with the Frogs and how we took it to them in the first half, winning most balls and putting them under a lot of pressure on their end of the field. I think they were rattled and frustrated because they are used to just abusing and dictating play to their opponents. But not tonight. We had a lot of good possession and set up scoring chances we couldn't finish unfortunately. The miss by Barbara at the end of the half was brutal but her relentless hustle for most of the match made up for it. The second half was even until about 20 minutes to go, when TCU starting wearing down our tired girls because only substituted a few times the entire match (not sure if we just don't have much roster available because of injuries?) and they started playing in our end and creating a lot of corner kicks for scoring chances. Luckily the backline came up with several great clearances and Caldwell had a key save late to hold on to the big win. The winning goal early in the second half came from a nice build up and very good cross from Kolb back to Geczik across the box for the finish. Geczik has clearly become a big part of the offense now. We did have a lot of shots high over the crossbar which is always frustrating since it's simple fundamentals to get your head over the ball before shooting.

I think we just had a lot of great hustle and just wanted this game more than the Frogs. Karlina Sample and Katie Smith really shut down the vaunted TCU forwards as they just couldn't get past them with our physical and speedy play. It was important to win because of the uncertainty of how the committee will pick entrances in the tourney. Some thought we might actually miss the tourney with a loss tonight but I think it was unlikely since we are SEC champs. We will be seeded now for sure and get a bye in the first round with only 48 teams in the tourney. The TCU coaches were characters on the sideline and lost their minds a few times with the ref, who I thought did a good job for the most part tonight. I'm sure they were very upset that their best chance to get their first ever win against A&M ended in yet another defeat. A&M deserved to win this game and I don't think it was a fluke either.

I have no idea what will happen in the tourney and who will be favored because of all the chaos in two separate seasons and so much roster change in all the big programs. If TCU was truly one of the best teams in the country, then we have a shot to advance far in this format with all games in NC in a few weeks. I hope they are going to stream some of the matches? But I do like our core group of players and their chemistry tonight and it's encouraging that most are underclassmen and return this Fall for a full season. Will be interesting to see what the incoming freshmen add to this group.