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HOUSTON – All five goals came in a frenzied second half as the HBU women's soccer team built a 3-0 lead over first place McNeese on Sunday afternoon at Sorrels Field and held on for a 3-2 Southland Conference victory.
 
In the first half, neither team's offense managed much in the way of dangerous chances with one shot on goal between them. HBU (7-6-2, 6-3-1 SLC) saw its first shot attempt come off the foot of Gabby Rodriguez in the fifth minute, but the junior missed wide. For the Huskies, their three shots of the first half all came within the first 12 minutes of the game. McNeese (12-4-1, 8-2-0 SLC) managed seven shots in the first period with the lone shot on target a 36^th-minute attempt by Rebecca Adcock that was stopped by HBU's Alanis Guevara.
 
The Huskies struck quickly in the second half when Autumn Wildung chased down a ball off the foot of Sabriah Spencer, collecting it just outside the right corner of the 18-yard box and quickly lofted a shot over McNeese's Emma Roccaforte and inside the left post to put HBU ahead 1-0. The Cowgirls responded with pressure on Guevara, putting three attempts on goal over the ensuing eight minutes but failing to find the net. HBU then added to its lead when a Casey Basso corner kick found Spencer in the box for a textbook header past Roccaforte to put the Huskies up by two with just under 28 minutes to play.
 
HBU held the 2-0 lead until the 77^th minute. Another Basso corner was cleared out by the McNeese defense but HBU's Ellee Hall chased the ball down in the left corner before sending a cross into the box, finding a waiting Baylii Bieke who knocked in a header to further extend the Huskies' lead to three. The Cowgirls stepped up the pressure from that point, with Savannah LaRicci sending Guevara diving to make a stop at the 78:20 mark but Maddie Neidig was there to knock in the rebound and put the Cowgirls on the board. Less than five minutes later, Anna Watson let rip from 25 yards out, beating Guevara to her right to cut the HBU lead to one with just over eight minutes to go. The Husky defense was able to keep McNeese from any shot attempts further to hang on for the 3-2 win.
 
Sunday's match marked the first time this season that a team has scored more than two goals on McNeese. Wildung's goal marked her fifth of the season while Spencer and Bieke both now have two. Guevara evened her record in goal to 6-6-2 while making seven saves.
 
"It was a great win. Obviously, it's nice to put three balls in the back of the net," said head coach Misty Jones. "It was nice to have the 3-0 lead. McNeese really turned it on and they scored a couple of goals to keep the game pretty tight. When we play a team of that caliber we kind of expect that. We definitely should have done a better job of closing the game out. I think overall, we played a good, complete game. It seemed like we were finding our rhythm a little bit better, which is obviously good heading into the tournament."
 
The Huskies will close out the regular season on Friday, Oct. 27, when they host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at Sorrels Field at 7:00 p.m. on Senior Night.