CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi soccer team readies for its first home conference match of the season this week, playing host to Nicholls on Thursday night at 7 p.m.
In their last time on the pitch, the Islanders (2-4-3, 0-0-1 SLC) started off Southland play with a hard-fought contest, earning their first point after playing to a scoreless draw on the road against Houston Christian. The two squads matched up evenly throughout the evening, with the Islanders taking 12 shots and two on goal as opposed to 15 and four on target for the Huskies while nearly evenly splitting the possession battle. Both teams also had a prime chance to put home the game-winning goal in the final 10 minutes, as HCU hit the crossbar in the 83
rd minute before A&M-Corpus Christi then followed that up with a shot off the woodwork by freshman
Sophia Dias with less than a minute to go.
"Going on the road for our first conference game against a good opponent in HCU who has grown a lot from last year was a great challenge for us," said Islanders associate head coach
Chloe Roberts. "As a new group with a lot of young faces, it was a great way to experience what conference play is like, and it's not easy. You have to show up every single day and put in a performance in order to get results, and I think that tie was a fair result. I think we showed really good moments, and there were things we definitely need to grow and get better in, but that's every team. Getting any points on the road is huge, so we're excited about that and it's something we really needed for our confidence moving forward."
After earning their first conference point, the Islanders will now try to pick up three more against the Colonels (3-5-1, 0-1 SLC), who started things off with a 2-0 loss at the hands of UIW last week. A&M-Corpus Christi has dominated the matchup with Nicholls in recent years, holding a record of 8-0-1 in the last nine meetings dating back to the 2018 season. The most recent match came in Thibodaux last year, where the Islanders used goals by sophomore
Cilia Leal, senior
Mai-Lisa Atis and sophomore
Alisa Divano to roll to a comfortable 3-0 victory.
"We need to really take it to the next level now," Roberts said. "We had a really great point on the road against HCU, and now against Nicholls, they're a different opponent with a different style of play. We have a gameplan put together in order to be successful, so we just need everybody to contribute and everybody to step up and show a good attitude, which is what they do. Going out on our home field in front of our fans is always great, so we're just looking to get out and give a performance that we know we can do, and hopefully the success comes with that."
Thursday's game can be watched live on ESPN+ with
Steven King on the call. The live stats can also be followed along as they happen.
Match 10 // A&M-Corpus Christi vs Nicholls
Date: Thursday, September 25
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
Location: Dr. Jack Dugan Family Soccer and Track Stadium // Corpus Christi, TX
Game Notes
Watch Live
Live Stats
Tickets
Socials:
@IslandersSoccer (IG) //
@IslandersSoccer (X)
