North Texas Daily

Torie Mosley | Staff Writer
@toriemosley

A warm, windy evening brought out over 400 North Texas faithful packing the Mean Green Soccer Stadium before the team’s third home game and its first Friday night game of the season against the Lamar University Cardinals.

North Texas ran up six goals against the Cardinals, four in the second half. Coach John Hedlund says the weather and the home crowd’s support helped the team play better than usual.

“This is the type of atmosphere you can run in all day,” Hedlund said. “The girls love playing in front of a big crowd.”

The Mean Green got off to a quick start with junior forward Rachel Holden scoring the first goal of the game in the fourth minute, the fastest goal of the Mean Green season so far. The score gives Holden five on the season and four straight games with a score. Holden said tonight was the team’s best game of the season.

Junior Rachel Holden awaits a throw-in from her teammate Libby Murphy. Meagan Sullivan | Senior Staff Photographer

“We really like playing at home,” she said. “Our Friday night games are our favorite and the crowd was pretty loud today. A lot of people came out.”

North Texas controlled the ball the entire first half with 16 shots and seven on goal while allowing zero shots to the Cardinals offense. Senior Karla Pineda scored the Mean Green’s second goal in the 30th minute assisted by junior Ana Flobeck giving North Texas a 2-0 lead at the half. The Cardinals played more aggresive to start the second half, forcing Jackie Kerestine’s only save of the game in the second minute.

North Texas then responded by scoring its last four goals in the final 29 minutes. Junior forward Marchele Davis scored the Mean Green’s third goal in the 61st minute. Pineda then scored her second goal of the game and the fourth goal for the Mean Green assisted by Holden in the 66th minute.

The goal made it the third time in Pineda’s career with multiple goals.

“It felt great, I don’t normally score two goals,” Pineda said. “[But] we had a great team effort. Its not only about the goals, its about being good [as a team].”

Senior Karla Pineda breaks away from Lamar and gives the Mean Green their second goal of the night. Meagan Sullivan | Senior Staff Photographer

Sophomore defender Tori Phillips and senior forward Amber Haggerty scored their first goals of the season with the last two goals for North Texas in the final eight minutes. Phillips scored the team’s fifth goal in the 83rd minute off Flobeck’s second assist on the night and Haggerty scored the sixth and final goal for the Mean Green in the 85th minute.

The North Texas offense’s performance tied for fourth in school history for team shots in a game with 39. Defensively, the Mean Green allowed only two shots the entire game, the fewest all season.

Six scores is the most goals the Mean Green have scored in a game since 2013. The 6-0 shut out marks the first time North Texas won by six goals since October 2012 against the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Tonight’s shut out makes three in a row for the Mean Green defense and five so far this season.

Redshirt senior goal keeper Jackie Kerestine hasn’t allowed a goal in the last 284 minutes of play since the first home game of the season against Kansas, a 2-1 loss.

“I got super frustrated that game,” Kerestine said. “One of my least favorite things to do is give up a goal and we gave up two, so it definitely feels nice to not get scored on since then.”

North Texas has yet to give up a goal to the Cardinals in the team’s five all-time meetings. Coach Hedlund says he’s proud of the high level North Texas is playing at.

“I like that [the team] takes pride in shutting people out,” Hedlund said. “Everybody’s going to battle us. We have a target on our back, but when we play like this tonight I don’t know who can really beat us.”

The Mean Green’s next matchup is on the road when they travel to Texas Christian University to take on the Horned Frogs for the first time since losing to them 1-0 last season.

Featured Image: Senior Lindsey Hulstein heads the ball back to her Mean Green teammates. Meagan Sullivan | Senior Staff Photographer