The Texas soccer team is again looking for answers after failing to register a single goal for the second consecutive game in a 3-0 loss to the TCU Horned Frogs on Friday night. 

Playing in a pandemic-shortened season that will only feature five road games, the Longhorns made the drive up I-35 to Fort Worth for their first road trip in nearly 10 months.

The two teams took the pitch hungry for scoring, as both were held without goals in their inaugural games of the 2020 season.

While the Longhorns were the early aggressors last week against Kansas, TCU brought the fight to them early on with a flurry of high quality scoring chances.

After Texas withstood the early TCU charge, senior midfielder Yazmeen Ryan cashed in on a heavily contested area near the Texas net, opening the scoring at the 27-minute mark with her first goal of the season. 

The Longhorns played better after giving up the initial goal, but the Horned Frogs prevented them from finding quality scoring chances early. TCU didn’t provide much space for Texas goal scorers Julia Grosso and Haley Berg, the latter of whom went without a shot in the first half.

The game opened up early on in the second half as Texas was able to attack the middle of TCU’s backline to create a couple of quality looks, but the Longhorns were never able to capitalize on their brief swell of momentum by putting the ball in the back of the net. 

Shortly after this barrage of chances from Texas to open the second half, TCU responded with its own series of chances that took multiple excellent saves from senior goalkeeper Savannah Madden to keep the score at 1-0.

Madden’s saves could only keep the Horned Frogs offensive attack at bay for so long though, as junior defender Brandi Peterson and freshman forward Abby Ogard set up senior midfielder Haley Mallion right in front of the Texas net to extend the lead to 2-0 with about 15 minutes left to play. 

Going into desperation mode after Mallion’s goal, Texas left its defense vulnerable in an effort to generate its first goal of the season. As a result, sophomore forward Grace Collins capitalized and made it 3-0 with a late goal of her own to put the nail in the coffin with two minutes to play. 

All throughout the match, TCU was able to largely control the flow by not giving Texas forwards much space to set up quality chances in their defensive zone.

After winning Big 12 Freshman of the Week honors for her performance last week, TCU defender Marz Akins was sensational in limiting the chances for Longhorn scorers.  

The loss puts the Longhorns at 0-2 and the Horned Frogs at 1-0-1. While the season is still young, Texas will need to start finding ways to win quickly with just seven more games left on the schedule.