Keeper play cost them tonight. Fuller needs to start the next game.

Bad loss

On a more positive note, as mentioned before, the midfield play was great, connected well with the backline and the attackers. Just felt like attackers were disjointed/far from each other and unable to connect near the box, but it seems like the talent is there with them.

mullokmotx said:

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Both baseball and softball lost there last spring.

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It's not just that they lost, it's how that matters.

We have a new head coach who is by trade a goalie. Goalie should be solid. I emphasize should be. Tonight there were too many mistakes to overcome.

We had solid play by the midfield. The offense needs to make better connections, but man the defensive mistakes were costly.

Texas St. had one player in the box on the winning goal. We had 3 players there: our goalie and Sexton and Hoang.

Their one player wanted it more and won a battle against our 3.

Texas St. first goal was also a brain fart by our defender (I think it was Carapazza) who just fell asleep on a free kick.

Really disappointing loss tonight in a game we controlled throughout. The midfield play is much improved already and consistently built attacks. We need to finish our chances. Too many shots way off target on very makeable goals. Ireland is going to be a really good one. Buchanan is the best shooter on the team and needs to take more shots. The attack is creative and we will continue to improve this season.

The communication and fundamentals in the back are a real problem right now. The first 2 goals by Texas St were high quality, however the first goal was a lack of marking. We almost gave up a penalty because the outside back misplayed a simple ball and scrambled to foul instead. That cannot happen. But the biggest issue by far right now is the GK. August is simply not ready to play at this level. She struggles to see the ball and cannot read balls in the air properly. The misplay of a rather easy lobbed pass into the goal mouth to give up the losing goal was one of the worst I've ever seen at A&M. It's time to put the experience back in goal with Fuller.

That was a rough one after a decent 1-1 start. To lose to this team was pretty bad,,especially with the way it all unraveled at the end. The poise is not there yet. I do like what Bobby is doing from a strategic standpoint and we work off the ball so much better than last year. But the lineup needs to be tweaked a bit and more focus on the defensive third of the field with communication and GK is needed. That's his expertise so I'm confident it will get fixed soon. Unfortunately, it cost us a game tonight in a season with very little margin for error.

I am not smart enough watching to soccer so I may be missing something. But this team in 3 games seems very disconnected. Sometimes on defense, sometimes on offense. Just don't see 11 players playing together. That may be related to the transition and players don't yet understand their roles. Hard to win many games until they figure out how to help each other on both ends. Maybe this will be the spark. Maybe it was Sherman v Arkansas St

I think a more confident, experienced goalie easily comes out on that first goal. It was a lofted ball from 50 yards out with nobody in front of her. The last goal was brutal. I feel bad for the goalie and the team as I felt we were the better side overall. These mistakes by a young team I guess can be expected, but still tough to take. Was that second goal from us really offside by Diaz? It didn't look like it at the field.

sexton and August need to hit the bench

Fuller and Landherr just better players than these 2

the roster management has been very poor tonite

I really don't understand the "Sexton needs to hit the bench" take. She's a very good player who is still young and gaining experience at this level. She's literally 17 years old and still technically supposed to be a senior in high school. Obviously mistakes are going to happen, but one mistake doesn't erase everything she's done so far. She literally helped create our first goal tonight and has played well overall. And that mistake didn't even cost us.

If we're going to evaluate players, it should be based on the full body of work, not one mistake in one game.

As for August, I agree tonight wasn't her best game, and I do think it would be fair to give the other keepers a chance. But I also have no doubt she'll bounce back and be great for us. We have a young team, and part of that is giving players room to learn and improve instead of immediately saying they need to be benched.

I really don't think we should be losing hope in this team yet. Obviously there are things we need to work on, especially set pieces, finishing, and a few things defensively, but I genuinely think we've gotten better every game. It just sucks that we lost tonight. Like really bad. I'm hoping this will be a turning point. Finally we have a home game this weekend as well.

To be honest, we had chances to score more and didn't finish them. Texas State wanted it more tonight and did a better job finishing their chances, and that's ultimately what made the difference.

I thought the midfield was way more connected this game, and we did a much better job connecting and getting the ball into our forwards. There were definitely positives to take from tonight despite the result.

I have no doubt this team will be really good. It's just unfortunate that with such a young team, it's going to take time for everything to click. We have a lot to work on, but I think we're clearly improving every game, and there's still a lot of season left.

The gk issues tonight were a head scratcher for me as she just looked like a different player than the last few games. There were a few balls that came into the box that felt like she should go get, not just the 1st and 3rd goals. I hate to break her confidence even more, but I think the coaches have to give Fuller a shot now. Sexton has looked more good than bad to me, but did have a couple of mistakes tonight. I think she sometimes looks like she isn't fast, but I am not sure if that is actually true or she just has awkward mechanics due to her height (I don't see her get beat to the ball very often). I will say that the Texas State fans, especially the ones on that side of the field in the second half were only about 5 yards from the field and were very loud, which could've been intimidating for our younger players. Maybe it was good that they got a taste of it before having to deal with road SEC fans, which can be absolutely brutal.

I too still have hope for this team and think we are better than last year, but we need to reduce the mistakes and finish our chances.

Thank you for being a normal supporter and actually seeing the game. Tired of the constant this team sucks takes. The flow of our game was the best it's been all season tonight for a large majority of it. This team is getting better and will continue to with every game. If we're going to lose by giving us 3 goals the way we did, I'll take that all day. Fixing those mistakes is a lot easier than losing a game you were dominated on the field in. If we win tonight 2-0 because we don't make 3 mistakes, this place is a happy fest. Yes this team has a lot of flaws, but you can see there is a plan and a vision, and there's freshman thrown in all over the best. A lot of those freshman also happen to be our most talented players by the way. I don't think people remember how hard it was to watch a lot of games last year. This team is making strides with every game and it will gel eventually. Obviously we all hope it happens soon, but it takes time. If you don't like it, stop watching it.

I agree with you about Sexton, and I believe the same could also be said about August. In my opinion, although she made a terrible mistake at the end of this game, she's been relatively solid and made some big saves in her first 3 games this season. The goals A&M conceded so far have mostly been coming from completely unmarked attackers getting the ball in the box and capitalizing. Just like what happened against Baylor a couple days ago, the opposing attackers this game have scored 2 goals while completely alone in the box. I think the biggest issue is the defense(sometimes the team as a whole on set pieces) losing focus and leaving the goalie out to dry. In this game it seemed on almost every Texas State set piece, they ended up having a big chance to score.

I'm very curious to see if Shuttleworth drops August from the starting lineup next game because of her mistake. If he does, I'm a little concerned it might put even more pressure on whoever starts in goal, since they saw August do well in her first 3 games and because of one blunder she loses her starting spot, they might be distracted during the games knowing the same could happen to them even if they do well for multiple games in a row but make one bad mistake. I'd imagine a goalie wants to know they're trusted by the coach and not always on thin ice each game.

That's an odd comment. Did you even watch the game?! Sexton was the one that created the first goal with her long ball to Trinity.

Couldn't agree more. From my perspective, I saw 88 mins of really good play. 2 min of unlucky situations and 30 min of poor official reviews. The first 10 mins the score was nearly 3-nil. Last year, we barely scored a goal in the final minutes of the game and it was painful to watch. This game, we had a very young team going against an experienced team with good athletes and on the road and they're progressively getting better and better! I saw a lot more good tonight than bad. The outcome is very unfortunate but this team is making progress quickly.

Pointing fingers isn't going to help. We can talk about the game all we want but the outcome is the outcome. They're all just young girls and normal humans who are going to make mistakes. Nobody is going to play a perfect game every single time. Let's take the positives from this one, learn from the mistakes, and keep moving forward. Bad week to be Sam Houston.

aggiesoccerfan67 said:

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Pointing fingers isn't going to help. We can talk about the game all we want but the outcome is the outcome. They're all just young girls and normal humans who are going to make mistakes. Nobody is going to play a perfect game every single time. Let's take the positives from this one, learn from the mistakes, and keep moving forward. Bad week to be Sam Houston.

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so we can't talk about obvious mistakes by players getting paid to play?

hmmm

Free country, you can do whatever you like.

If you like to continually show everyone on here you only find comfort in belittling others, that is your choice. You might want to get thicker skin and not respond every time someone points it out to you.

I think most of us understand this is a complete rebuild job and things this season aren't going to be easy. We're going to have some growing pains. I hope we see some improvement through the year (and there's a lot to improve on), but next year's team will be the test for me.

My head is spinning with some of the takes from the new posters in this thread. That was NOT a good game. This was a very bad loss. Texas State is not a good team. They were as sloppy as we were on defense. And no, the game wasn't "almost 3-0 in the first 10 minutes" and no, we weren't just "unlucky." I've been around long enough to see plenty of times where we were unlucky. This was just bad.

Historically, our Aggie teams have been predicated by a great back line and goal keeper. What we're seeing out there is a mess. That needs to improve foremost. I'm not saying the players are bad and I know they're giving full effort. They're just not on the same page and they're getting caught out of position. Also, we're going to give up at LEAST one goal this season losing a ball we're trying to play back to the keeper. We've seen it every game, where that's the first instinct, even when there's no space to do so.

And for those unsure about our backup keeper. What? It's Sydney Fuller. She has the experience. She's been a good player for us the last 2 years. I was surprised she wasn't named the starter. But coach should know what he's doing here - especially with GKs. So I'm not going to question that decision. He obviously sees something with August. But y'all questioning if Fuller has the composure to come in is bonkers.

As I said previously, I'm not judging the coach on this rebuilding year as long as we do see some improvement. But as we improve, guess what - so will our opponents. It's going to be a tough year and we can be realistic about that. This team has good players and potential and I'm certain they also believe that was a bad loss. We don't have to lie to ourselves. There's work to do.

Man, y'all... I've been called out as being overly optimistic in the past, but the sugar coating in this thread gave me a stomach ache.

This is an unacceptable goal given up.

Our defender (I believe it is Carapazza) just lets the player she is marking directly behind her right in front off the goal on a free kick from mid field.

I wish I could draw one up as a coach as easy as we allowed this one.

All square 😼

22' | 1-1#EatEmUp | #IMPACTFUL pic.twitter.com/FdW22Ze05h

— Texas State Soccer (@TXStateSoccer) August 20, 2026