CHARLOTTE, N.C. – The Florida Atlantic University women’s soccer team’s incredible run in the Conference USA Tournament came to an end in the championship game on Sunday. UTSA outlasted the Owls 3-2 in double overtime in a highly-contest battle that lasted until the final whistle.
The Owls’ season concludes at 11-8-3 with FAU’s deepest tournament run since 2019.
As they have all season long, the Owls showed tremendous heart by battling back from a 2-0 deficit in the second half. The Roadrunners scored in the 31st and 35th minute to take the 2-0 lead into the break, but FAU cut the deficit in half with a score from Morgan McDonald in the 54th minute.
McDonald hit Bri Austin with a nice pass in the box, then Austin gave it right back to McDonald down low on the left-hand side. The freshman punched it in inside of the right post to give FAU momentum and pull within one.
Only 13 minutes later, McDonald made another play on a freshman-to-freshman connection. In the 67th minute, McDonald sent a textbook corner kick in that found the head of Elin Simonardottir, and Simonardottir punched it in to tie the game at 2-2.
The championship match went into overtime, and the Roadrunners punched in a header off a corner kick just two minutes in. Since the new collegiate overtime rules require two 10-minute overtime periods to be played out, the Owls had one more fighting chance.
Goalkeeper Lexi Gonzalez took a free kick that wound up on frame but into the hands of the leaping UTSA keeper. FAU kept vying for the tying goal to force penalty kicks and had one more shot when Bri Austin hit the crossbar with four minutes left, and UTSA held onto the win in the C-USA Championship.
QUOTES FROM THE OWLS
“First of all, we’d like to congratulate Coach (Derek) Pittman and his players for winning today and advancing to the NCAA Tournament,” FAU head coach Patrick Baker said. “We showed some tremendous character in fighting back after going down 2-0. We made a couple of individual mistakes and got hurt on set pieces, which have done us in this year. In the second half, we fought back even though that was the case. There’s a lot of different emotions, we’re proud of how they fought back, but then we’re also gutted and disappointed. We lose a lot of great seniors in an extremely talented class. I wish we could have played one more week together, but everything comes to an end at some point, and only 64 teams get to keep playing next week.”
NOTABLE
- Three Owls were named to the All-Tournament team in Hailey Landrus, Thelma Hermannsdottir and Gi Krstec
- The Owls held the upper hand in shots, 15-8, as well as corner kicks 8-4
- Landrus and Hermannsdottir close out their five-year Owl careers tied for second place all-time in FAU history in games played, each with 87
- Landrus finishes as FAU’s all-time leader in minutes played with 7,415 minutes tallied on the pitch
- Austin finishes her final season leading FAU in goals (9) and points (25)
- Krstec closes out her career with personal highs in goals (7) assists (3) and points (17)
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