The Teams: Tarleton Texans (4-9-3, 0-7-2 WAC) vs. SFA Ladyjacks (5-10-1, 4-5-0 WAC); UTRGV Vaqueros (2-11-3, 0-6-3 WAC)
Where: Nacogdoches, Texas; Edinburg, Texas
Stadium: SFA Soccer Field; UTRGV Soccer Complex
Time: 7 p.m. CT (Thursday); 6:30 p.m. CT (Saturday)
Video: ESPN+
 
TEXAN SOCCER GAME DAY
The inaugural Tarleton Soccer season will wrap up this week with a pair of games on the road as the Texans take on SFA and UTRGV. The weekend slate will shift to Thursday and Saturday. The Texans play SFA in Nacogdoches tonight at 7 p.m. and UTRGV in Edinburg Saturday at 6:30 p.m. There will be live stats and video available for both games. The matches will be broadcast on ESPN+.
 
ABOUT TARLETON SOCCER
Women's Soccer is one of the newest programs at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. The addition of the program was announced on January 19, 2021 after the university made the move to NCAA Division I and the Western Athletic Conference in July 2020. Pete Cuadrado was named the first head coach of the program after successful tenures at North Dakota State and the University of Wyoming.
 
QUICK KICKS

• Tarleton State University will close its NCAA debut season this week. Tarleton made the decision to add women's soccer after making the leap from NCAA Division II to Division I on July 1, 2020. Tarleton announced the search for a head coach on January 19, 2021.
• Kiki Baurmann will play the final two games of her collegiate career this weekend. The senior graduate student spent her final season helping shape the future of Texan Soccer with the first-year program. She has started all 16 games for the Texans, has one goal scored, and has dished out a team-high six assists. She was recognized at Tarleton's first Senior Day last Sunday afternoon. She enters the week ranked No. 4 in the WAC in total assists (6) and assists per game (0.38).
• Avery Harr is one of six players in the nation on reclassifying teams with more than one game-winning goal. Harr has the game-deciding goal against Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Alcorn State this season.
• Mila Bettinelli has been putting up shots at will since WAC play began. The freshman has attempted a team-high 15 shots since conference play began, including seven on goal. Bettinelli has at least one shot attempt in each of the last nine games and 11 of the last 12.
• Rylee Low leads Tarleton in shot efficiency since league play started. In Tarleton's seven WAC matches, Low has taken seven shots and put a team-leading six on goal (.857%).
• As the season draws closer to the end, Tarleton has six players who have started every game of this inaugural soccer season (16): Kiki Baurmann, Macie Witter, Avery Harr, Adriana Alonso-Gomez, Rylee Low, and Sydney Rouillard. Rouillard leads all Texans in minutes played (1,180).
• Of the teams on Tarleton's inaugural schedule, head coach Pete Cuadrado had previously played five.

 
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FOREVER
Tarleton made its long-awaited home debut, and it did not disappoint. Tarleton set an impressive standard for attendance with 2,512 Texan fans in attendance for this historic night. A few other home facility firsts for the record book include:
 

Feat	Player
Shot	Kiki Baurmann (2') missed over top
Goal	Avery Harr (6')
Assist	Kiki Baurmann (28')
Save	Mikayla Kendall (33')
Card	Brishu Musungu (UAPB, 36') yellow card

 
NOTABLES

• BUILDING FROM SCRATCH: Pete Cuadrado was named the first head coach in Tarleton Soccer history on May 21, 2021. The veteran head coach made the choice to return home to Texas where he played his college career at TCU. Cuadrado was tasked with beginning a program from scratch with one full year to put together a complete roster. The first addition to the soccer team for head coach Pete Cuadrado was assistant coach Rex Carrell. The former Division III standout joined Cuadrado as a volunteer assistant coach for the first year before signing on as the first full-time assistant coach this summer. Cuadrado rounded out his coaching staff with Delaney Castor, who wrapped up her career as the most prolific goalkeeper in Howard Payne University (D3) history. Castor joined the staff in May.
• OPENING AGAINST THE BISON: Pete Cuadrado's first official game as the head coach of Tarleton's newest program came against a former team that he led to new heights – North Dakota State. Tarleton opened against the Bison, where Cuadrado was the head coach for nine seasons and led NDSU out of NCAA Division II and into the Division I ranks. During his time with the Bison, he went 93-62-18 and was named the 2005 NCAA Division I Independent Coach of the Year. He is still the Bison's all-time wins leader. Tarleton received an unwelcome greeting from Pete Cuadrado's former club in their NCAA debut on August 19 when North Dakota State scored in the opening minute, but Tarleton battled back and got a goal from distance by Adriana Alonso-Gomez to give Tarleton a tie in its debut outing.
• WINS IN LOW PLACES: Tarleton recorded the first-ever win in school history off the foot of freshman Rylee Low. After tying NDSU in the season opener, Low put her first career goal in the top right corner from distance in the 85' to put the first official win in the Tarleton history books against Nicholls State.
• HELLWIG COMES IN CLUTCH: Macy Hellwig's first career goal was one to write home about. With time winding down against ACU in the WAC opener, the freshman from the Great White North found the back of the net in the 83' to tie the match. Hellwig pumped the brakes at the top of the box, reversed course, and ripped her shot into the bottom left corner of the goal to lead Tarleton to a draw against the Wildcats.
• SCORING FROM DISTANCE: Tarleton's first two goals in program history came from beyond the 18-yard box. Adriana Alonso-Gomez scored the first goal in school history to tie the game against North Dakota State and Rylee Low hit the game-winner against Nicholls State last Sunday. Both goals came from downtown, as did Kiki Baurmann's game-winner in the exhibition against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The first home goal in program history in the third match of the season was the first goal for Tarleton inside the box.
• WALKING ON: Lindsey Schiller joined the team ahead of the season opener as a walk-on tryout player. Schiller, a junior transfer from Howard Payne (D3), was the only tryout athlete to earn a spot on the full-time roster. She played two seasons at Howard Payne where she played in 26 matches and scored four goals. She totaled 28 shots with 13 on goal for a .464 SOG percentage. She was teammates with her current coach Delaney Castor. Since joining the Texans, Schiller has appeared in 14 games and scored her first goal against UTPB.
• FROSH FOOTWORK: Tarleton has had 12 different Texans score a goal this season. Of Tarleton's 23 goals scored this season, 14 have come from six different freshmen. Mila Bettinelli and Avery Harr are two of the Texans tied for the team lead in goals this season with six and three, respectively. Tarleton freshmen have accounted for 87 of Tarleton's 151 total shots (.576) and 46 of Tarleton's 80 shots on goal (.575).
• AGENT DOUBLE-0 KENDALL: Mikayla Kendall is establishing herself as one of the top goalkeepers in the WAC. The freshman stopper has spent 1140 minutes between the pipes for Tarleton this season, making 49 saves and being part of five total shutouts (four of which she was in goal for the entire 90 minutes). She leads the team with 49 saves this season.
• CASTOR GOES BACK BETWEEN THE PIPES: Due to injuries in goal this season, assistant coach Delaney Castor was officially added to the active roster and started two matches. Since arriving at Tarleton in July, Castor has been enrolled in graduate courses in pursuit of a master's degree and left Howard Payne with one additional year of eligibility remaining. At Howard Payne University (NCAA D3), Castor was the conference Goalkeeper of the Year, all-conference, and all-region honoree during her HPU career. Castor's name is smattered across the Yellow Jackets' school record books. She broke 13 school records over the course of her four-year run in Brownwood, including career saves (453), career saves per game (7.6), career save percentage (.809), single-season saves (159) and single-game saves (24). In her two matches for Tarleton, she made 11 saves and survived an onslaught of shots from New Mexico State (25) and Sam Houston (12).
• EYEING THE FIRST WAC WIN: Tarleton enters the weekend still in search of their first-ever win against a Western Athletic Conference opponent. The Texans have two league ties to their credit for two points in the standings. The top six teams in the WAC standings advance to the conference postseason tournament.
• PRESSURE KEEPER: The Tarleton goalkeepers have taken an onslaught of shots over the last six games. Texan opponents have made 130 shots over that span, including 25 by New Mexico State, a season-high 31 from Grand Canyon, and 28 from Utah Valley last Sunday. In comparison, Tarleton has put up 37 shots over that time. Mikayla Kendall's 27 saves over the last four games lead the team.

 
FROM COACH CUADRADO

• ON THE HOME OPENER: "The day we took the job, (Thursday) was the day I circled on my calendar. The excitement surrounding it for the last 12 months was what we talked about when we were recruiting. It is one of the best memories I'll have, and I've done this a long time."
• ON WHAT HIS TEAMS ARE KNOWN FOR: "We should be great defending. We should be organized when we defend. We should be deadly on our dead balls, and those are starting to come. That's how I've made my career. Defending is something you can always count on in the game of soccer because it's an effort thing. If you bring the defense and bring the effort, that's how you get on the field for this program."
• ON HIS SENIORS: "(Our seniors) are two veteran grad transfers. Macie (Witter) has been a great leader on and off the field. She comes from Georgia in the SEC program with a great pedigree. Kiki is a great person and player. She's super technical and can get in behind people. She scored one of the best goals I've seen against Corpus. I got quite a few texts and phone calls from all over the country after that goal. She's irreplaceable off the field for us. Unfortunately, we only get her for one year but we get Macie for two. That will be huge for us."