Texas Tech Battles UNM to Season-Opening 1-1 Draw
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Despite dominating shots to the tune of 15-3 and placing nine of those 15 attempts on frame, the Texas Tech Red Raiders battled the New Mexico Lobos to a 1-1 draw Thursday night at the UNM Soccer and Track Complex.
Texas Tech (0-0-1) looked to have the match won, as freshman Sam Courtwright scored a highlight reel first goal on a perfect feed from Taylor Zdrojewski in the 77th minute.
The connection between a pair of classmates served as seminal moment for both players, who recorded their first career goal and assist respectively.
Tonight’s moment for Zdrojewski was made even more special by the fact that it served as the culmination of a near year long rehab following a devastating season-ending injury last Aug. 27.
Boosted by the momentum from the goal, Tech kept pushing forward to find the elusive second goal of the match.
Midway through the 87th minute, Tech’s Kylie Bahr was whistled for an offsides just inside UNM territory.
The call, which seemed innocuous at the time, proved to be crucial as it awarded the Lobos a free kick opportunity.
UNM took advantage, as keeper Ali Davis cemented her status as the player of the match, serving a perfect ball deep into the Red Raiders defensive third. In addition to setting up her teams lone goal, Davis also made eight saves denying the Red Raiders time-and-time again.
With the ball bounding toward the endline, UNMs Paige Satterlee chased it down, sending a cross deep into the Tech six-yard box.
The cross skimmed off Mercedes Morris’ head and fell right to the feet of Ellie Robinson who deposited the ball into the lower-left portion of the net and past White.
As previously mentioned, the goal was the lone shot on goal for the Lobos on Thursday.
The undisputed player of the match, Davis stood on her head, recording eight clutch saves, two of which came on a crucial sequence in the 20th minute when she stonewalled Giselle Kozarski twice from point blank range.
In the draw, Kozarski and Courtwright each recorded four shots, one more than the entire Lobo team.
HEAD COACH TOM STONE:
“Giving up the late set piece goal tonight was very uncharacteristic for us. We have an amazing backline and a bigtime goal keeper. As a team we fell asleep on the back post and UNM took advantage. I dont know if we have dominated UNM to the extent we did tonight in years. This is a heck of a team that’s very well coached. But the game tonight was ours to win. We had chances all night and Sam [Courtwright’s] goal was brilliant. When we were offsides and they had the chance to take the big restart, that’s when they made the most of their opportunity. It hurts to walk away with a draw tonight. They shot one time on our goal and it went in. But also have to take something away from this knowing that our performance tonight was better than most last year. So we started off on the front-foot in that manor but we didn’t get the result we came for and we had to settle for the tie giving up the late goal.”
UP NEXT:
Tech opens a five-match homestand on Sunday night when they welcome New Mexico State to the John Walker Soccer Complex. First kick is set for 7 p.m.
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Release provided by Andrew Stern Texas Tech Athletics
