Soccer preview: at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi

Match 11: Texas (5-5-0) at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (4-6-2)

Time: Friday, March 26 – 7 p.m. CT

Location: Corpus Christi, Texas (Jack Dugan Soccer Stadium)

Tickets: LINK

Live Stats: LINK

TV: The match will be web-streamed live on the Islander Digital Network (GoIslanders.com) through this LINK.

Free Kicks:

Texas enters Friday with a 2-0-0 all-time record against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and a 1-0-0 mark in road match-ups. In the most recent meeting in Austin, Texas, back on Sept. 8, 2019, the Longhorns won 3-0 on goals from Kailey Smith (46 seconds in), Haley Berg and Julia Grosso.

Texas freshman Lexi Missimo registered quite the collegiate debut against Texas State back on March 5 by scoring her first collegiate goal (penalty kick) and dishing two assists for four total points in a 4-0 victory. For her efforts, Missimo was named the Big 12 Conference Freshman of the Week and an honorable mention selection to the Top Drawer Soccer National Team of the Week. She joined fellow freshman Presley Echols as Texas players to score a goal in their collegiate debuts in 2020-21.

Lexi Missimo was named by Goal.com in 2021 as the No. 4-ranked player on the #NXGN list of the world's best wonderkids of women's football.

The Longhorns have won 30 consecutive matches in which they scored two-or-more goals in a contest dating back to the start of the 2017 season. The last time Texas failed to win when tickling the twine on two occasions was in a 3-2 defeat at TCU back on Oct. 28, 2016.

UT is 23-3-1 since the start of the 2018 season when scoring first in a match and 5-0-0 in such contests in 2020-21.

The Longhorns have spread the scoring around so far in the 2020-21 campaign as eight different Texas players have scored goals and 11 different players have tallied at least one point.

Senior midfielder/forward Haley Berg enters Friday having totaled at least one point in five of her last eight matches. She equaled her career-long point scoring streak of four matches by tallying at least one point from Sept. 25 vs. Oklahoma to Oct. 16 vs. Iowa State. She had previously accomplished that feat from Oct. 7-21, 2018.

Texas head coach Angela Kelly reached another coaching milestone in her 21st season as the 4-0 win over Texas State back on March 5 gave her 250 career wins.

Texas fans will see two new faces on the pitch this spring as freshmen midfielders Lexi Missimo and Amelia Abbott graduated high school a year early so they could join the squad at midterm. Missimo was ranked as the No. 1 recruit in the nation in Top Drawer Soccer's IMG Academy Top 150 rankings, and in 2019, scored 66 goals and dished 41 assists over 31 matches with Solar SC on the way to being named the 2019 USSF Girls Development Academy Player of the Year. A native of Nelson, New Zealand, Abbott joined the Longhorns with New Zealand international playing experience both as part of her country's Under-17 and Under-20 squads. Abbott earned six caps and played 499 total minutes (most by any New Zealand outfield player) during New Zealand's run to a bronze medal at the 2018 FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup in Uruguay.

After going just 2-8 in one-goal matches back in 2016, the Longhorns have turned around their fortunes by going 28-15 in their last 43 one-goal matches since beginning 2017. Six of UT's nine fall 2020 matches were settled by one goal with the Burnt Orange & White going 3-3 in such contests.

The University of Texas at Austin Athletics