Texas finished their weekend in Austin strong on Sunday night as junior midfielder Kylie Doniak led the Longhorns to their first Big 12 win of the year in a 1-0 victory over Baylor.

Doniak scored the only goal of the match in the 12th minute off of a free kick from the far right side of the field near the sideline. Her shot took a bounce and found the back of the net. This was Doniak’s third goal of the year and second game winner.

In the 13th minute, Doniak was given the opportunity to give the Longhorns a 2-0 lead with a penalty kick. But Baylor goalie Courtney Seelhorst saved it.

The first 30 minutes of the game were dominated by Texas with shots by Kylie Doniak, Lexi Harris and Hannah Higgins. Sophomore Kristen Cummins, Texas’ leading goal scorer, had a header shot that went wide in the 25th minute.

In the last 10 minutes, Baylor had three shots. In the 84th minute, Baylor’s Lisa Sliwinski attempted to tie the game with a header, but Alexa Gaul made a great save.

Texas outshot Baylor 10-8 and goalie Alexa Gaul had five saves in her sixth shutout of the year.

Baylor played recklessly and received 23 fouls throughout the game and four yellow cards issued to Georgia Mullins, Kat Ludlow, Karlee Summey and Vic Hoffman.

Texas is now 8-3-3 overall and 1-2-2 in league, despite tying with Texas Tech 0-0 on Friday at home. The game went into two 10-minute overtime periods, but neither team could end the game with a golden goal. The Longhorns dominated most of the game but were unable to get anything past Red Raider goal keeper Erin Wikelius.

“We actually played pretty well, but there’s two parts to it,” said Texas head coach Chris Petrucelli. “You’ve got to play well and score well, and we didn’t score well.”

The Longhorns started off the game on the attack, putting the Red Raiders on their heels early. Texas kept pushing the ball into Texas Tech territory, which created chances from corner kicks. The Longhorns took six corner kicks in the first half and had 12 for the game.

When Texas wasn’t getting chances off corners, forward Leah Fortune created the offense for the Longhorns. In the 23rd minute, she dribbled through three Red Raider defenders and dropped it off to a wide open Higgins, who let a shot go from the 18-yard box. The ball was headed for the far corner, but Wikelius made a diving save to keep the ball out of the net.

Fortune continued to generate offense for Texas in the second half. Fortune drew a foul 7 yards outside the box in the 57th minute, which set up a free kick for midfielder Kylie Doniak. Doniak sent the kick through a four-man wall but didn’t get enough on the ball, and Wikelius was able to stop the foray without too much trouble.

Although Texas was able to put up 15 shots on Wikelius, she was able to avoid trouble because most of those were sent wide of the goal. Of the 15, only four made it on net.
“I think a lot of time, we’re looking for that perfect goal,” Doniak said. “We were a little bit unlucky today.”

As much as the Texas offense struggled, the defense excelled. Senior Erica Campanelli was charged with defending star Baylor midfielder Taylor Lytle for the game, who was an all-Big 12 selection last season and has three game-winning goals this season.

“We gave up very few scoring chances,” Petrucelli said. “I felt we had them bottled up where they weren’t creating much. Erica [Campanelli] was certainly a part of that.”

Campanelli was strong all match but made the play of the game with seven minutes remaining in the second overtime period. The Red Raiders crossed the ball into the box, and Texas keeper Alexa Gaul came of her line to play it. But Gaul mishandled the ball, leaving Raider forward Tiffini Smith with the ball 10 yards from an empty net. Campanelli reacted quickly and retreated back into the goal in time to head out a shot by Smith that would have won the game.

“Once you’re in golden goal, any minute of the game you’ve got to stay focused,” Campanelli said. “Once the ball goes past you, you do whatever you can to get behind the goal. I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time.”

<em>— Additional reporting by Lauren Giudice</em>