Cowgirls Punch Ticket With Ninth Straight ASC Title
ABILENE, Texas — Hardin-Simmons' women's soccer team won its ninth straight American Southwest Conference title with a 2-0 win over Texas-Dallas Sunday afternoon at the HSU Soccer Complex.
The Cowgirls earned their ticket into the NCAA Tournament and will find out on Monday where their NCAA title defense will begin.
HSU got in the board in the 22nd minute when Shannon Byrd sent a nice through ball to Vivian Wells who finished to the bottom right corner of the goal to make it 1-0. It was the 13th goal of the season for Wells, who was named the tournament MVP.
The Comets came out in an attacking mode and had a couple of first-half shots on goal but Rebecca Roth saved them both. HSU outshot UTD 9-2 in the first half.
The Cowgirls went ahead 2-0 on a corner kick. Devon Howard finished a perfect set piece as Katie Kuykendall served a corner to Julianne Kucera, who headed it down to Howard for her eighth goal of the season.
HSU outshot UTD 11-3 and 5-3 on-goal. HSU had seven corners to one for UTD.
Rebecca Roth worked the shutout in goal for HSU.
It was the seventh time the two teams have met in the ASC Finals. HSU has now won 14 American Southwest Conference titles in women's soccer in the 16 years of the league.
Hardin-Simmons is now 19-1 and UTD is 16-4. The Comets will hope for an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
All-Tournament Team
Lauren Hankins-Hatcher, HPU
Kassey Nix, HPU
Kendall Williams, Concordia
Lauren Browningm, Concordia
Emily Holkanson, UTD
Leah Bowyer, UTD
Emily Hughes, UTD
Vivian Wells, HSU (MVP)
Julianne Kucera, HSU
Taylor Thigpen, HSU
Shannon Byrd, HSU
