Texas State Advances to Southland Tournament Finals
NATCHITOCHES, La. - Back-to-back goals from Texas State junior Britney Curry proved to be all the top-seeded Bobcats would need to shift past No. 4 Sam Houston State Friday night, and with a 2-1 victory over the Bearkats, Texas State advances to the championship match of the 2009 Southland Conference Tournament.
Texas State will face No. 2 seed Southeastern Louisiana at 1p.m. at the Demon Soccer Complex. During the 2009 regular season, the Bobcats and Lady Lions played to a 0-0 double-overtime time.
With Curry's pair of goals, her single-season tally reaches 18 and breaks a Texas State record of 16 goals set by Danielle Holloway in 2004.
Texas State and Sam Houston fought through nearly an entire half before breaking open the void. At 38:23, Curry set up from 16-yards out and put a cross from Kendell Webber into the left corner of the net for a 1-0 Bobcat lead.
In less than a minute, Texas State was granted a corner kick and Jaimie Leake's header fell short of the net. The junior was there from four yards out to tap in the goal for a 2-0 lead into the half.
Sam Houston staged a comeback at 71:15 with a goal from Amanda Biega that slipped past Mawyer, but that would be all the senior keeper would allow.
Texas State held a 10-3 tally over SHSU in shots. Both Mawyer and Sam Houston State's keeper recorded three saves.
The 2009 Championship game will be streamed online through www.southland.org and television on SLC NOW.
Texas State Coach Kat Conner
Sam Houston State played a really good game. After coming off a very hard game against UTSA last night, I thought they might be a little bit dead but they didn't. I have to give them credit they clawed and scratched and never gave up. It was an excellent effort on their part. We didn't play our best ball tonight but that's a credit to Sam Houston's effort today.
We're good right now but we're up and down. We need to get our focus and mentality back, but I think we'll be alright.
Texas State Junior Britney Curry
It's been a great year all around. Especially with how far we've come and we're just a great team. Everybody has been able to step up and hopefully this Sunday we will take home the championship.
Facing SLU: It's definitely a big game, we're going to have to step it up and play a lot better than we have been. It's going to be a really tough match but if we step up and play our game I know we can do it.
Sam Houston State Coach Tom Brown
I think we are gaining valuable experience and confidence that will help us in the future. I thought we showed a good accounting of where we are right now. We are disappointed that it's over and we will push on from here.
I think built that on confidence coming from a goal down last night, it gave us good confidence scoring that goal. We created opportunities last night and they didn't fall for us. Last night they did. We have to be pleased with our experience in this tournament.
Sam Houston State Freshman Amanda Biega
I think we are really confident as a team. The chemistry was really great and I think it was one of the best games we have played the whole season.
After goal: We kept playing and kept pushing. The last 15 minutes just kept going-going-going and we did the best we could.We could have held the ball more and connected more passes. We just did the best we could given the circumstances we had.