Soccer Battles Texas To A Scoreless Draw

Sunday, September 26

Boulder, Colo.

1 p.m.

Colorado

5-4-1, 1-0-1Big 12

Texas

6-2-2, 0-1-1Big 12

OT 3

OT 4

Texas

Colorado

Photo by: CUBuffs.com

September 26, 2010 | Soccer

Box Score

By: Cydney Ricker, Graduate Assistant SID

BOULDER - The University of Colorado women's soccer team fought to a 0-0 draw against the University of Texas in double-overtime in its Big 12 Conference home opener Sunday afternoon at Prentup Field.

Ninety minutes wasn't enough for Colorado (5-4-1, 1-0-1 Big 12) and Texas (6-2-2, 0-1-1 Big 12) for the third straight match up, the previous two resulting in Texas wins in double-overtime.

Considering this weekend kicked off conference play with two matches, the Buffaloes were a bit tired, but they didn't back down in hopes of picking up another 'W'.

"I think both teams had their opportunities," said Kate Russell. "Definitely, defensively we were very strong today, which is always a good thing. We didn't capitalize on the chances we did have but there were just a couple of them. It's kind of disappointing because generally we don't have a problem scoring."

The entire game was controlled by the each team's defense, and the even 0-0 mark after 90 minutes marked the fourth game this season the Buffs have played extra time but first time with no goals scored in the extra frames (3-0-1).

The Longhorns came close to netting their first goal in the 98th minute of the contest, but freshman goalkeeper Annie Brunner made a stellar pair of saves. UT's Amanda Lisberger passed the ball to Leah Fortune but Brunner punched it away. Fortune got her head on the ball and tried again, but Brunner deflected the ball a second time.

Colorado's main struggle was connecting on passes and head coach Bill Hempen linked that to the fact that the players were tired. Colorado's last three matchups have gone to overtime. The last instance this occurred was in the 2006 Big 12 Championship when CU went 1-0-2 in three consecutive overtime games.

"They all wanted to do something special when something special wasn't necessary and something simple was," said Hempen. "They all wanted to be the one to hit that pass right on somebody's foot, and it came up short every time. You have to listen to your body a little bit to know that your body probably can't do this."

After beating two top-ranked programs in the previous two games, UCLA (10) and Texas A&M (6), a tie wasn't exactly what the Buffs were looking for.

"It's better than a loss, so you can't complain too much there," Russell said. "It would have been so much sweeter if we would have had that win. It's always such a pain to play the extra 20 minutes while all you want is that one goal."

The women's soccer team will travel to Texas next weekend for its first two-game conference road series. Colorado will play Texas Tech in Lubbock ?on Friday, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. MDT. The weekend will wrap up in Waco, Texas as the Buffs take on Baylor at Noon on Sunday, Oct. 3.