Jones' last-minute goal lifts Aggie soccer team past Bears

Chelsea Jones is known around Ellis Field for her motor, so it wasn't a surprise to see her dart down the field opposite a developing play to head in the game-winner with less than 2 minutes left.

That goal off a crossing pass from Merritt Mathias gave Texas A&M a 2-1 victory over Baylor in the teams' Big 12 opener Friday in front of 3,251 fans, A&M's 11th straight win over the Bears.

"One of the things great about Chelsea Jones is her range, her cardiovascular fitness," A&M head coach G. Guerrieri said. "It's special, and she has the ability to cover a lot of ground. The coaches were working with her this week to join the attack more often, use that engine as a weapon."

Mathias drew the attention of Baylor's defense near the end line on the right wing, split a pair of defenders and drove a left-footed cross to the far post. Jones beat her defender to the post and, despite being arguably the smallest player on the pitch, headed it into the back of the net at point-blank range for her first game-winner at A&M (5-4, 1-0).

"Every one tells me I'm the smallest one out there, so you just have to get in there and fight and be tough," said Jones, a junior midfielder who is generously listed at 5-foot-4. "There was no way we were going to go to overtime. I was not going to let that happen, so we had to finish our chances, and we did."

With the A&M-BU game being the lone Big 12 match Friday, the Aggies got a jump on the rest of the league in defending its conference title.

"It couldn't have been a better time to get in past the other team's defense," Guerrieri said of the game-winner. "It was really a great effort by Merritt to set it up and put that ball into that position. So very dramatic."

The Aggies had other opportunities, most notably when Beth West cracked a shot from outside the box that Baylor goalkeeper Courtney Seelhorst dove to her right to save. Seelhorst did well to stop the shot, then even better to pounce on the rebound with a couple of Aggies close by.

Baylor forced Jones' heroics by squaring the game at 1 in the 66th minute on a free kick by Larisa Campos from 33 yards out. The shot squeezed between the outstretched hand of A&M goalkeeper Renee McDermott and the crossbar for Baylor's first goal against A&M since 2002.

The Bears had one good chance at a second.

Minutes after tying the game, A&M's Rachel Lenz tried to clear the ball but hit a Baylor player, and it fell in place for Baylor's Natalie Huggins to collect behind the Aggie defense. Huggins hurried a shot that sailed high.

The Aggies took a 1-0 lead on an Annie Kunz header in the 38th minute.

West chipped a ball into the box that took a big bounce. Seelhorst hesitated coming off her line, and Kunz got to the ball first and headed it over the keeper into an unprotected goal for her team-leading sixth goal of the season.

A&M's defense played well, not allowing Baylor (6-2-1, 0-1) any good scoring opportunities in the first half. The Bears took only four shots and earned no corner kicks compared to A&M's 11 shots and seven corners.

"The difficult schedule we played has helped us in games like this, games that a goal will go against the run of play -- one lucky shot and all of a sudden they are back in the game," Guerrieri said. "Those are hard teams to play against because there is no rhythm to the game, and they are trying to make it as chaotic as possible."

A&M will host Fordham at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. Fordham (4-3-1) beat Utah Valley 4-2 on Friday afternoon at Ellis Field.