PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – In a battle of last season's tournament and regular season co-champions, Alabama A&M (3-6, 1-0 SWAC) battled through nine combined yellow cards in a physical contest as they delivered a convincing a 4-1 victory over Prairie View (0-5, 0-1 SWAC) in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) opener for both teams in an NCAA Division I women's soccer game on Friday, September 23.
The Panthers would get on the board first as Lesa Griffin found Kamara Bradley for a 1-0 lead at the 14:07 mark and the defense would make that hold up until the half. Just before the break is when things started to get chippy, however, with three cards on PVAMU.
As it turned out they would have more cards than tallies on the board, a fact that A&M exploited in the 48
th minute. Junior midfielder
Anouck Heyer (Bornheim, Germany) connected with freshman forward
Taylor McNeal (Kennesaw, Ga.) at 47:51 and the latter buried the ball in the back of the net to knot things up at 1-1.
The physical nature of the game would catch up with the Panthers in the 64
th minute, with the irony being that it was not a result of one of the seven yellow cards whistled against them. Instead it would be a foul in the box, setting up senior defender
Alana Paul (Clinton, Md.) for a penalty kick. She would proceed to beat the keeper with 63:33 gone by and give the Bulldogs a 2-1 advantage.
They wouldn't have to wait near as long to see a change on the scoreboard and that would come as senior goalkeeper
Laura Jansa (Barcelona, Spain), up on a free kick, found senior forward
Makayla Rushing (Red Oak, Texas) to make it 3-1 at the 70:01 mark.
With a two-goal lead late, the defense would continue to lock down on PVAMU and then break through on offense one more time – with 12 seconds to play. That would come as freshman midfielder
Ma'Kayla Prince (Hamilton, Ohio) fed freshman forward
Leyla Molina (Pembroke Pines, Fla.) to reach the eventual final margin of 4-1.
Paul, Rushing, McNeal and Molina would each notch a solo score to pace Alabama A&M while Prince, Heyer and Jansa dished out an assist apiece. The latter would deliver another strong performance between the pipes as she played all 90 minutes, making two saves and surrendering just the one early goal to improve to 3-6 overall.
Prairie View would be limited to just six shots the entire game with Bradley being the only one to convert, that on an assist from Griffin. Joining Bradley with a pair of shots would be Jaiden Morgan, who along with Griffin, had one of the three shots on frame. Brooklyn Hawkins took her turn in the shooting gallery as she played all 90 minutes and felt all of it, giving up four goals against just five saves.
Off to a strong start in defense of their regular season title, the Bulldogs conclude their swing through the Lone Star State as they head to Texas Southern on Sunday, September 25. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.
