 "Photo: Erik Reyna/The Daily Texan")
It looks like the Longhorns have been granted a second chance by the soccer gods. It was just a week ago tonight that the Texas soccer team lost to Texas A&M 4-0 in College Station in their regular season finale.
But tonight at 8 p.m. at Blossom Soccer Stadium in San Antonio, the Longhorns will have another go at the Aggies in the Big 12 Championship semifinals.
This picture looks familiar to the upperclassmen. In 2007, A&M beat Texas in the regular season, but then the Longhorns came out with a victory over the Aggies in the conference tournament finals and became national champions.
“This game brings me back to memories of my freshman year,” said junior Erica Campanelli. “In the regular season, we didn’t have a good game against [A&M], but in the Big 12 Championships, we played them in the championship game as opposed to the semifinals. And we won the Big 12 Championships that year.”
Despite Texas’ poor performance last week, Campanelli says that her team will come out attacking tonight.
“More than anything, we want to win this game so bad,” she said. “We know our season is approaching its end, and we’re going to do everything we can to see ourselves in the championships on Sunday.”
Campanelli has been the backbone of the Texas defense all season and is one of four Longhorns to have started in every match. She is also the lone player on the squad to play in all 1,897 minutes of action this season.
In order to have a positive outcome in tonight’s match, Campanelli explained that head coach Chris Petrucelli changed some of the team’s tactics after the whole team watched footage of last week’s game against the Aggies.
“They were able to exploit us a lot last week,” Campanelli said. “We weren’t able to win as many 50/50 balls in the air as we would have liked. They had most of the possession and were constantly attacking. We need to make sure we get the ball at our feet a lot more and are more composed and don’t let the game get hectic.”
The Longhorns put out a full throttle effort Wednesday in their double-overtime 1-0 win over Colorado. Campanelli said that if the team can connect passes and play like they did against the Buffaloes, there’s a good chance the Longhorns could come out on top.
“Against Colorado we fought as hard as we possibly could fight for 107 minutes,” she said. “Anytime you go out and give that kind of effort, good things can happen.”
The Longhorns have remained in San Antonio, resting up for tonight’s win-or-go-home match.
“We’ve hit the ice baths a lot and made sure every single person is hydrated,” Campanelli said. “We’ve done everything you can do from a nutrition standpoint and from a resting standpoint. Off the field, we are definitely focusing on everything we could possibly focus on, and we hope it will give us the best advantage.”
The Longhorns have been practicing daily while in San Antonio as well, prepping for all the obstacles the Aggies will throw their way.
“You can always expect that A&M is going to play hard,” Campanelli said. “It’s a huge rivalry, and they’re going to give everything they’ve got. You can expect they’re going to pass the ball, and you can expect that they’ll have a lot of speed. But I think those are things we’re ready for.”
