Aggies bounce back in big way by blanking Fairfield on Fish Camp night
Packed stands and screaming fans.
Exactly what Texas A&M needed to dominate in its return to Ellis Field.
On Saturday night, the 24th-ranked Aggies (2-1) shut out Fairfield (2-1) in the annual Fish Camp match, 3-0.
The victory comes after falling in Wednesday’s home opener to Denver.
“It was a full house,” A&M head coach G Guerrieri said. “Thousands and thousands of people in attendance, by far the biggest attendance in college soccer so far this year.
“The 12th Man is on their feet, standing and cheering for our women and supporting our women, and that's something that's really special. It's really unique, and you can see how our players respond to it. You look at all the confetti on the field from the goals and from the celebrations of the 12th Man. It is pretty cool.”
As far as attendance goes, 5,241 filled the Ellis stands.
As for the match, the Maroon & White entered with a new defensive strategy and better offensive transitions, which proved effective against the previously unbeaten Stags.
“The issue for us was we needed to compact spaces a bit,” Guerrieri said. “We got way too stretched out, and a part of that, I'll take the blame for on Wednesday. We made a couple adjustments tactically in our shape that you live and learn, and we found that that's not a shape that's really conducive to this particular group and you'll live and learn.
“We found that what we were able to do tonight is a little bit better for our psyche, and it allows us to feel better about going forward when we land the ball.”
In the 18th minute, senior midfielder Mia Pante opened scoring with a 30-meter shot that rocketed into the back of the Stags’ goal.
It was Pante’s first marker of the young season.
“[The first goal] helped us get a bit of momentum,” she said. “We did very good from the very beginning of the game, but getting a goal in the back of the net adds a bit of confidence to us and helped us for goal number two and goal number three.”
Junior midfielder Sydney Becerra took advantage of a free kick in the 33rd minute to bring the lead to 2-0. This was quickly followed by sophomore defender Margo Matula, who capitalized off a Leah Pirro corner kick to make it 3-0 in the 36th.
“I've been working on finishing off of crosses for a while now, so it felt good to finally put it back,” Matula said. “It had a positive effect in the team room during halftime, but we still had to come back out and finish the game. It wasn't over yet.”
The Ags entered the second half up 3-0 but with a scoreless mentality.
“[Our mindset] was back to 0-0 to start the second half,” Pante said. “To continue to put the pedal on the gas and really go ahead and 3-0, just forget about that and start 0-0.
“Soccer's a 90-minute game, so keep pushing for the second half.”
A&M held on to the lead for the remainder of the match and was relatively unthreatened.
The home team garnered a total of 20 shots and eight on goal, as opposed to Fairfield’s five shots and singular shot on goal.
In goal, Sydney Fuller made one stop en route to the clean sheet.
“You’ve got to give Fairfield a lot of credit because they're a good team,” Guerrieri said. “They're going to win a ton of games this year. I give them every chance to win the max this year because of their ability to keep the ball. They've got big-time players, they've got very good athletes. They were able to stick with us. We had to score really good goals to win the game.”
Approaching next week's match against Baylor, the Aggies are emphasizing their newly-gained confidence.
“We're scoring almost 10 goals in three games,” Guerrieri said. “Knowing that we can score, knowing that we can score in a variety of ways, knowing that we are creating about 20 shots a game is a nice thing.
“The Battle of the Brazos is always a big rivalry game that goes back to Big 12 days and even to Southwest Conference days. There's a lot of history between the two schools.”
A&M will face Baylor on Friday in Waco. Kickoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT.
