CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas—Throughout this streak of seven wins in eight games, Northwestern State has taken over games in the second half.
This one was no different, as the Demons (7-6, 4-1) scored twice in the second half to lift NSU to a 2-0 road victory against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (4-7-3, 1-4-1) on Sunday afternoon at Dr. Jack Dugan Soccer & Track Stadium.
"I thought it was a good game," head coach
Ian Brophy said. "We played well. It was a really professional performance. I thought we managed the first half well under some difficult circumstances with the wind.
"In the second half when we had the wind at our back, we knew we could push and close out the game. We played well in the first half too, but we just didn't capitalize on our chances."
It is the first time NSU has been over .500 this season and the 4-1 start in Southland Conference play is the best start in the first five conference games since the NCAA Tournament team of 2021.
With the win, the Demons also move into a tie atop the SLC standings with UIW at the midway point of the conference schedule.
The Demons received goals courtesy of an own goal by AMCC and it was followed just a minute and a half later by a goal from
Ravina Sandhu off a pass from
Emily Gundin.
NSU earned the own goal after a corner kick was earned by Gundin, who was robbed on a great save by Addie Brown, who made seven saves for the Islanders.
But Gundin's shot was tipped away and past the end line for a corner. Pethel booted the corner kick into a crowd into the box, and the AMCC defense tried to head it out but accidentally headed it into her own net for the NSU lead in the 51
st minute.
Moments later, Sandhu doubled the advantage off a great connection.
Maliya Maldonado, who scored her second goal of the season against East Texas A&M last time out, started a scoring break for NSU, passing it ahead to Gundin and she delivered a perfect pass to Sandhu, who scored bottom left of the goal.
The assists are the 45
th and 46
th helpers this season, which is now the school record. Gundin's assist is her seventh this season, moving into a tie for sixth in program history for a single season, and 14 career assists are now eighth in school history.
"Emily's been awesome," Brophy said. "As a captain, she has really stepped up and done really well, Not only that, with her distribution and her scoring ability, she's really developed into a complete forward and can do a little bit of everything for us, and I do think that that's something that we really value in her and credit to her in terms of taking her development seriously and improving every single year and then we've really seen her pop this year and she's definitely having a breakout season."
Playing against the wind in the first half, the Demons leaned on their defense to play to a tie in the first half, as
Audrey Marfia recorded five of her career-high eight saves in the first half.
The clean sheet is the second shutout of the season and the third of her career.
"Audrey was really good today," Brophy said. "She made some great saves and was jumping on things in terms of coming off her line and made key saves in key moments. And then on corner kicks, she was really strong today. We knew that Corpus was going to be dangerous on corners and the way she commanded those situations was exactly what we wanted."
Each team had 13 shot attempts, as the Demons were led by
Paige Baumgartner's four.
The Demons now prepare for a one-game week this upcoming week at home against Houston Christian on Thursday before heading back on the road for a battle with Southeastern Louisiana on Oct. 22.
