While another scorching South Texas summer may be coming to a close, the women’s soccer team is turning the heat up with their play at the UTRGV Soccer and Track & Field Complex.
The team is fresh off posting UTRGV’s first winning record (10-8-1) a year ago in just the third year of the program’s existence. Now entering year four, Head Coach Glad Bugariu’s squad is loaded with senior leadership and young talent that has been on display right out of the gates. Bugariu said the team wants to defend home field by making visitors uncomfortable in dealing with the South Texas climate, which UTRGV embraces and practices in daily.
“We want to make this place a fortress,” Bugariu said. “If we can win our home games, we’re guaranteed a good season. We’re going to continue working hard and playing well at home, and if we keep doing that I think you’ll see quite a difference.”
Defend home field they did, as the team’s hot start began by winning the UTRGV Tournament, the first time they’ve been crowned tourney champions.
Junior forward Diandra Aliaga matched a single-game high by scoring two goals against Sam Houston State University on Aug. 2o to win the UTRGV Tournament Championship in a 2-1 game. Aliaga accounted for eight of the team’s 14 shots, including six on target. In the game prior against Prairie View A&M University, UTRGV took 19 shots and converted on three goals from forward Andreya Barrera, forward Anna Hover and defender Tuva Rolstad Nilsen for a 3-1 win.
After being crowned tourney champs, Aliaga said it’s just the beginning of the goals UTRGV Women’s Soccer Team hopes to accomplish in 2017.
“We have goals and this is just the beginning, so it was super important that we came out to a good start,” Aliaga said. “We dominate because of the heat and other people can’t handle that. Today, I feel like we played much better and this is our first chance to be tournament champions, and we knew the heat was our teammate, so we just went out and killed it.”
Bugariu’s 2-4-4 attack, which features multiple scoring threats, has been creating havoc for opposing defenses. Five different student-athletes have recorded the team’s seven goals in their first three games, including one exhibition match.
Barrera, a graduate student, and five seniors—midfielder Frida Farstad-Eriksson, goalkeeper Erica Gonzalez, defender Marcela Ramirez, midfielder Hanna Spets and forward Allyson Smith—return for their fourth and final year with the program. With their experience and leadership, the homegrown products will be depended upon in order to put together back-to-back winning seasons.
While heavy on experience, a few new additions have brought an energy and knack for putting the ball in the back of the net. The freshman pair of Hover and midfielder Gina Steiner, along with sophomore forward Sarah Bonney, have provided a spark on the field with their ability to create attacks offensively and finding the open player. Bonney was named to the Preseason All-Western Athletic Conference Team.
While the team is focused on improving in every practice and match, the strong senior core combined with underclassmen contributors creates a blend of talent and experience that Bugariu is glad to see.
Spets, a team captain, said the competitive nature of the younger players and experience of third- and fourth-year players has given the team more depth and competition than in previous years.
“For them to come in with more speed and they’re very athletic, it brings competition into the practice, which means we’re stepping up our game, and obviously, you can see it on the field that it’s noticeable that we push hard,” Spets said.
UTRGV is right in the middle of a six-game home stand to begin the season, which the team sees as an opportunity to build momentum on and off the field.
Then, the women will be hitting the road for three games against Houston Baptist University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi for the second matchup of the South Texas Showdown, and the University of Texas at Austin.
“We’re able to create lots of chances. … We’re really happy with what we’re doing this year; we’re trying to be more offensive than we have in years past and I think it showed today,” Bugariu said after the team’s tournament championship. “We’d like to make the WAC Tournament, that’s very important for us. We just want to continue to improve. We have a much harder schedule this year and just go one game at a time and try to get some wins.”
