Cardinal midfielder Eva Karen fights for possession of the ball against TAMUCC Islander, Sep 11, at Lamar University Soccer Complex. UP image by Brian Quijada.
On a hot sunny, afternoon in Beaumont, Lamar University's women's soccer team opened their conference play with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. At 4-0-1, this is the best start for the Cardinals in their program history after five games.
Eva Karen would be the lone goal scorer as she managed to strike in a penalty kick in the first half. LU finished the game outshooting AMCC 15-6, including an 8-2 shots on goal advantage.
"We had to overcome a quality opponent" said head coach Nathan Kogut. "We overcame the heat. We had to play a lot of kids to get it. I'm happy, but not satisfied with some of the things we did. I'm glad winning is hard, especially in this league on the second game of a weekend. But to be able to start off 1-0 is huge for this team."
From the start, AMCC began the first half with a couple of early chances before the Cardinals would manage to get their shots into the net. After 31 minutes where no one could breakthrough, a critical turning point came in the 32nd minute. That was when Isela Ramirez drew a penalty in the box and Karen was able to convert the penalty kick for a 1-0 lead.
The second half saw LU take command as they fired 10 of the 13 total shots on the Islanders. In spite of this, they were unable to add to their total. But then again, they were able to keep AMCC off the scoresheet as the Islanders had three chances to get even. By the end of the contest, LU kept their home unbeaten streak alive at eight games in a row.
