Nathaniel Puente 
It’s week three and we have a trio of UTRGV teams to go over. We start off in Deland, Florida where men’s soccer took on the Stetson Hatters, that’s one of my favorite nicknames for a university. But that cool name was no match for the UTRGV Vaqueros, who capped off two goals thanks to Kyle Edwards and William Akio, who knocks in a penalty kick right here into the left of the net and he’s doing a little dance because he knows that his team is going to come away with the two-nil win which matches well with their 2-0 record following this game but it was not their only one this weekend
The next Florida matchup was a little tougher as UTRGV faced the 15th ranked UCF Knights. Even though the Vaqueros were up against a severely powerful UCF team, they put up a really good fight. Trailing 2-0 at half time, the Vaqueros found equalizing goals thanks to Kyle Edwards and Lukas Moser goal came in the 90th minute. The game stretched into double-overtime before UCF broke through with the penalty kick goal that would give them the win.
The boys now hold a 2-1 record and stay on the road against Marshall next week.
Women’s soccer hosted the Southern Utah Thunderbirds and the Vaquera offense was electric. Nine different players made shot attempts for UTRGV for a total of 26 shots on the night. Only one found the net but it was the one that mattered. Sarah Bonney continued her onslaught of the UTRGV record book with the game-winning goal in the 60th minute which led to a 1-0 win for the Vaqueras. It’s the fourth consecutive game that the Vaqueras have shut out opponents.
Now enough with soccer. We’re moving on to a sport where only this goes on.
Volleyball is back and the defending WAC regular-season champions were in Corpus last week for the South Texas Showdown. The match went back and forth with each team trading the first four sets. UTRGV took the second set after falling behind early before a Barbara Silva kill gave the team enough momentum to charge through for the set lead. Silva led the team with a career-high 24 kills on the night as the Vaqueras prevailed 3-2. Another star on the night, Sarah Cruz. Remember the name because she’s going to be a star.
The team stayed in Texas for the UTSA Classic and classic it was. You see this right here? It’s a Big 10. This is the number of times UTRGV Volleyball has defeated Big 10 opponents. Well, now it’s this number thanks to the Vaqueras win over Maryland. The match was a back-and-forth affair but thanks to the dual threat of Silva and Cruz, UTRGV prevailed with a 3-2 win to start the tournament. However, they would drop the next two games by getting swept by UTSA and Houston. Volleyball is back in action this week at the Texas A&M Invitational.
Click on the video below to watch the segment.
