Nathaniel Puente 
To keep that spirit going we have a whole feast of games ready to go over. We start with Women’s Soccer closing out their season at the WAC Tournament.
Seattle, Washington hosts the WAC tournament and UTRGV enters the big dance as the 5th seed. They opened the tournament against 4th seeded CSU Bakersfield. The Roadrunners drew first blood with a goal from Eszter Toth after a nice cross from Darian Tatum. The Vaqueros would answer back with an Emily Zapata goal.
Both teams stayed locked at 1 and finished out the overtime periods without finding another goal. No draws in the playoffs. It’s time for the most exciting part of soccer: penalty kicks. Senior Kinga Szemik defended the net for UTRGV while Andrea Neves did it for the Roadrunners. The schools missed the first five shootout attempts thanks to some great goalkeeping but UTRGV broke through thanks to Elina Seppala and Sarah Bonney.
After that dramatic win UTRGV took on the top seeded Seattle U Redhawks. Now this game is in Seattle. This is their turf. Still, the Vaqueros held their opponent out of the net for the first 76 minutes but the powerful Redhawk offense broke through with Lauren Brown. Seattle U followed this win with a victory in the WAC finals to win the tournament.
And congrats to them. While one WAC tournament is set to begin. Another is just ready to start this week. Coming into the weekend, UTRGV sat as the 7th and final seed to qualify into the tournament. All they have to do to make it in is beat last-place Incarnate Word. Easy, right? Well, that’s why they play the game OR Well, you see this? This is paper. Games aren’t played there.
We head out to the football pitch, or should I say the gridiron? Either way they’re playing some kind of football. The Cardinals have only won one conference game this year. Not a big challenge here… wait there’s a nice move from Karol Wengrzik to snag the open net goal. Well, no big deal. That’s only Incarnate Word’s fifth goal of conference play, there’s no way they’ll score.. Another goal! This one from Johnathan Diaz. The video freezes because even cameras can’t believe this. It’s the most goals the Cardinals have scored in a game since August as they close out this one winning 2-0.
It’s a tough way to end the year as UTRGV misses the postseason for the first time since 2015. Just as their season ends, another begins. Men’s Basketball opened their year on the road against South Dakota State.
UTRGV’s 2019 campaign tipped off in South Dakota and right away the Jackrabbits ran away to a big lead. South Dakota’s Douglas Wilson led the game with 24 points on the night. The Vaqueros highest scorer was Junior Javon Levi with 18 points. Ultimately, UTRGV fell in this one 70-57.
Tough loss there but the Women’s team had a chance to defend home court in their home openers. And hey, both teams have the shape of Texas and you don’t wanna mess with us.
South Texas meets Texas Southern at the UTRGV Field house. The Vaqueros got up 3-2 thanks to Megan Johnson knocking down a three-pointer but that was the last time UTRGV led as Texas Southern dominated the night. Ciani Cryor led both teams with 26 points on the night. In the end, Texas Southern won this one 71-44.
The Vaqueros got another chance at home though. This time, they took on Minot State. Early on this looked like a close match. The Beavers led after the first quarter but UTRGV went on an impressive run the rest of the way to pick up the win. The Vaqueros out-stole Minot State 16-4 as they ran away with this one 75-56.
Click on the video below to watch the segment.
