If the Texas A&M soccer team's back line can continue its turnaround, it may want to take on the nickname "The Breakfast Club."
A&M recently surrendered 10 goals in three games, a string unheard of by the Aggies in 13 seasons of Big 12 play, which prompted a players' meeting only. The end result of the breakfast get-together and a good week of practice was a shut out of the Cowgirls at Oklahoma State.
"We got scored on four times in one game. After that, we just looked at it and said, 'You know what? We have to do better than this,'" senior defender Emily Peterson said. "[The defense] sat down as a team, and we had a breakfast together and really talked through it."
No. 14 A&M (9-4-1, 3-1-1) gave up three goals to Oklahoma, three to Kansas and four to Missouri in a 10-day period.
Entering the season, A&M had allowed three or more goals in a Big 12 match just five times. And the 10 goals over those three games were more than the Aggies had allowed for an entire Big 12 campaign eight different times.
After a 4-4 draw with Missouri, the Aggies' conversation was about picking it up as a team.
"The breakfast was all a players thing," said sophomore Rachael Balaguer, the only defender to start all 14 games this seasons. "Most teams that I've known or when I was being recruited aren't as close as we are, and it's really neat to have that bond outside of the field, so we can hold each other accountable and talk to each other, be there to say good job but also be there to say pick it up."
A&M head coach G. Guerrieri credited the players for taking responsibility. He then gave the chore of fixing the problem in practice to assistant coach Phil Stephenson.
"We just had to change the attitude and the perception of the way we were defending," Guerrieri said. "The change we made basically was from defending individually out on individual islands to putting us all on the same island."
The 1-0 shutout at Oklahoma State marked just the second time the Cowgirls were shut out in Stillwater, Okla., since 2005.
"They are a very formidable attacking team," Guerrieri said. "They have a kid on the Hermann Trophy watch list, Kasey Langdon, a right winger, who was matched up on Lyndsey [Gnatzig] and Emily's side, and we did a great job of shutting her down."
Coming into the season, the last thing the Aggies and Guerrieri thought they'd have to worry about was the back line.
A&M returned all four starters and two preseason All-Big 12 goalkeepers after allowing just 0.58 goals per match in Big 12 play last year. Balaguer and Peterson started alongside Bri Young and Becca Herrera, both of whom were selected to the Big 12 all-newcomer team.
"I think it was almost overlooked this year," Peterson said. "We kind of just assumed that our backline was going to be good and solid, so maybe we didn't focus on it as much as we should have. We kind of needed that wake-up call."
With injuries and illnesses to Herrera and Young, the Aggies have had to mix and match their defense in front of goalkeepers Kristin Arnold and Kelly Dyer. Gnatzig has filled in for Herrera at left fullback, and fellow freshman Mary Grace Schmidt has slid back from the midfield to central defender.
But perhaps the most important move came late in the match against Missouri. Peterson entered the game after the final goal, and the Tigers never threatened to score in the final minutes of regulation or the two overtime periods.
In the nearly 200 minutes since, the only blemish for A&M has been a penalty kick early against Loyola-Chicago.
"[Peterson] is a calming effect to the team, that's for sure," Guerrieri said. "They look at her as a leader. She's quiet, shows it with your actions type of thing."
The good news for the Aggies is they went 1-1-1 over the 10-goal stretch, including a 3-2 loss to OU and a 4-3 win over KU to go with the draw against Missouri. With two 1-0 victories since then, A&M is still in the Big 12 race at the halfway mark.
"Last year that would have been our undoing because we struggled so much to score," Guerrieri said. "This year we've been able to outscore people on a few occasions. It's why we play the game, because you never know."
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