SAN ANTONIO – The UTSA soccer team (6-3-1) logged a 1-1 result against visiting Abilene Christian (2-2-6) on Sunday at Park West, registering the first draw on the season during Hispanic Heritage Day. The Wildcats knotted the score in the 28th minute, negating Lulie MacFarlane’s 17th-minute go-ahead score.
There were plenty of shots flying around the pitch on Sunday at Park West, but not enough finding creases in the defense that provided either team the final reward. The Roadrunners carried an 11-6 shot advantage into the halftime break, but couldn’t separate as one key shot found the back of the net for each squad in the opening half.
With just 17 minutes elapsed, Tyler Coker collected a ricochet off ACU goalkeeper Emma Konsmo and dished off to Memphis-transfer MacFarlane to easily press the goal into the left side of the mostly-open net – registering her first career goal in only her second career start.
Though it looked like UTSA was starting to gather some steam, just 11 minutes later Raegan Hollis found Peyton Hill driving the field, and Hill slipped the equalizer past Jasmine Kessler’s deflection to knot things up at 1-1.
Across the remaining 62 minutes, 11 shots between the teams had the potential to break the deadlock, with eight of those coming from UTSA, but saves or defender deflections kept the draw intact to the final horn.
UTSA led the matchup with a 23-9 shot advantage and eight shots on goal to ACU’s four. The Roadrunners also registered seven corners to ACU’s one.
In goal, Kessler tallied three saves, while Konsmo collected six for the Wildcats. Sasjah Dade took a career-high five shots to lead the Roadrunners, ahead of Maci Geltmeier’s four attempts.
Goals
ACU: Peyton Hill (28’)
UTSA: Lulie MacFarlane (17’)
Quoting Coach Derek Pittman
"I’m very frustrated. At this point in the season, we should be clicking on all cylinders and that wasn’t the case today. That’s on us as coaches. We’ve got to go back and look at how we prepared and how it affected our performance. First off, we didn’t start how we needed to. I’m proud of Lulie for getting the goal and putting us up 1-nothing. We were probably fortunate to only be tied 1-1 at halftime. Happy with the way we responded in the second half, but we know that’s not going to be enough to sustain us in AAC play. We’ve got to pick our heads up and we’ve got to do a better job of looking at how we go about things so that we can play a full 90 minutes of soccer and not just 45."
UP NEXT: Jumping right back into American Athletic Conference play, the Roadrunners will head back east for one of the biggest matchups on most league schools’ calendars – UTSA travels to meet No. 11/15 Memphis on their home turf on Thursday, Sept. 26, facing the Tigers at the Mike Rose Soccer Complex with a 7 p.m. kickoff.
- UTSA -