COMMERCE – Two goals in a span of five minutes were enough to give the Southland Conference-leading Lamar Cardinals a 2-1 win over the Texas A&M University-Commerce soccer team at the Lion Soccer Field on Friday night.
 
The loss drops the Lions to 4-7-2 overall and 4-3-1 in conference play for 13 points. After Friday night's action around the Southland Conference, A&M-Commerce is in a three-way tie with A&M-Corpus Christi and Houston Christian for third place. The Lions downed both teams earlier this season and play HCU again, next weekend. Lamar now has an eight-point advantage in the SLC standings with three matches to play.
 
Mya Mitchell (Dallas – Mesquite Horn) had her streak of scoring a goal in six straight matches snapped last weekend, but she started another one by scoring her eighth goal of the season in the 3^rd minute to give the Lions a quick 1-0 lead. Her goal came via assists from Karalie Morrison (Colleyville Heritage) and Kaitlyn Valaitis (Rowlett – Sachse). A long pass from Valaitis was handled by Morrison, who dribbled it over to Mitchell, who scored from about five yards out.
 
The Cardinals had 12 shots in the first half and two ended up in the back of the net in quick succession. Cariel Ellis scored her seventh goal of the year in the 20^th minute, assisted by Christine Kitaru and Meg Sheppard and her second goal was scored in the 25^th minute, also assisted by Kitaru as well as Laura Linares.
 
Facing six shots on goal, Lion goalkeeper (Jen Peters) made four saves, while Nicole Panis had six saves in the match. Lamar outshot A&M-Commerce, 18-16, with nine shots coming by Ellis, while Mitchell had four shots for the Lions. Lamar had the 5-4 in advantage in corner kicks.


POST MATCH INTERVIEW
 
UP NEXT
The road stays tougher for the Lions on Sunday as they head to Natchitoches, Louisiana, to take on Northwestern State at the site of the 2022 SLC Soccer Tournament. The Lady Demons are currently in second place.