Women’s soccer heads to Jarvis Christian, A&M-Texarkana

The Texas A&M University-Victoria women's soccer team wants to build off a strong showing Saturday.

The Jaguars rallied for a 2-1 win at Red River Athletic Conference foe Louisiana Christian to improve to 4-2-2 overall and 1-1 in conference play.

A&M-Victoria's stout defense once again shined, limiting the Wildcats to just two shots in the win. The Jaguars' boast the third toughest defense in the conference with a 1.13 goals allowed average.

"I have a lot of respect for our defense, especially our whole back line," said head coach Kimberly Uetrecht. "Our center backs are really good at communicating exactly what they need from the rest of the team. And they're our engine; they drive us forward. So, seeing them be successful, seeing them be confident in what they're doing is really neat."

Now, they'll but that tough defense to the test on the road at Jarvis Christian (0-6-1, 0-2) on Thursday, and at Texas A&M-Texarkana (7-1-1, 2-0) on Saturday to continue RRAC play.

Last year, A&M-Victoria had to rally for three goals in the final 12 minutes for a 4-3 win at Jarvis. A&M-Texarkana boasts the most goals in the conference with 34 through nine matches.

"Jarvis and A&M-Texarkana are strong programs," Uetrecht said. "They always give us a really good test. I think, though, the luxury of playing two teams last week that are incredibly strong is we have an idea of what the expectation is for conference play. Our conference is very, very strong. Every single game is going to be a battle. You can never expect to go into a game and have an easy time."

The Jaguars will look to continue their strong offensive performance as seen throughout the early part of the season to set the tone this week.

Ayloni Garcia, who scored the equalizing goal against Louisiana Christian, ranks fourth in the RRAC for goals (6), points (14) and shots (28).

But, as they've shown three times this season, they're capable of rallying.

A&M-Victoria has had three matches in which they tied or took the lead in the final 10 minutes of a match. Vanessa Bevalian has provided that magic twice now after scoring the winning goal in the 88^th minute on Saturday.

"This is a ridiculously competitive team," Uetrecht said. "Whether it's eating the most pasta at a team dinner or trying to win competitions at practice, they want to be winners at the end of the day. They compete with everything. But they're also one of the closest teams I've ever seen. So, in those last few minutes and that last big push, it's excited to see them fight for each other, to get excited for each other and compete for each other."