Women's Soccer Suffers 2-1 Loss in SCAC Semifinals

HOUSTON, Texas -- No. 2 seed Texas Lutheran dropped a heart breaking 2-1 decision to No. 3 seed Southwestern Pirates in SCAC semifinal action Friday afternoon at SaberCats Stadium in Houston, Texas.

Texas Lutheran concludes its season with a 9-5-4 record. The Bulldogs drop to 8-10-2 all-time in the league's postseason event and 10-18-4 in the all-time series against Southwestern.

Texas Lutheran maintained a 14-8 differential in total shot attempts while the Pirates would battle for a 5-4 advantage in shots on goal.

A 41st-minute goal would allow the Pirates to carry a 1-0 lead into halftime and they would maintain that lead for nearly 30 minutes of game time before a pinpoint cross from Elaina Barrientes (Lubbock/Coronado) would lead to an equalizer from senior Kelly Wolfe (San Antonio/Churchill) in the 71st minute.

Just as TLU seemed to gain momentum in the match, Southwestern would respond with the game winner in the 80th minute.

The Bulldogs  - a team picked to finish second in the preseason poll - conclude the 2023 season with a 9-5-4 record, going 5-1-1 in the SCAC to claim second place in the conference in the regular season. The Bulldogs matched the program record set a season ago for conference winning percentage - matching last season's mark of .786. Alyssa Simien (San Antonio/Warren) became the first player in TLU women's soccer history to win multiple SCAC Offensive Player of the Year honors and first to repeat as SCAC Offensive Player of the Year. A program record ten Texas Lutheran women's soccer players were all recognized by the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) headlined by Simien and freshman Caitlin Roach (Manvel/Manvel) who was named Newcomer of the Year.

The Bulldogs will graduate seven seniors : Delaney Lyle (Austin/Hendrickson), Madison Johnson (Pflugerville/Hendrickson), Savannah Rush (Yuma, AZ/Yuma Catholic), Leilani Sanchez (McAllen/McAllen Memorial), Kelly Wolfe, Liliana Avila (Blanco/Blanco) and Katherine Banda-Segura (Lockhart/Lockhart). We thank them for all of their contributions to the Texas Lutheran women's soccer program.

For all updates on Texas Lutheran Women's Soccer, follow @tluwsoc on X (Twitter) and Instagram and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on X (Twitter), @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).