ABILENE, Texas -- Texas Lutheran delivered an emphatic victory on Friday night, downing Hardin-Simmons, 5-1, in a matchup of two 2025 NCAA Tournament qualifiers in Abilene.
The Bulldogs (2-4) scored their most goals in a single-game since their 5-0 win over Howard Payne on Sept. 7 last season.
Sophomore
Luis Briseno (San Antonio/Madison) tallied a hat trick off the bench, with all three goals coming within 16 minutes in the second half. The hat trick is the first since Luis Green against Schreiner in 2022.
Sophomore
David Villarreal (San Antonio/Reagan) scored his first career goal while junior
Raymond Palmer (San Antonio/Clark) scored the second goal of the match for the Bulldogs, his first of the season.
Villarreal also tallied two assists. Freshman
Alex Isaacson (Round Rock/Round Rock) also had two assists on the night while freshman
Juan Flores (Manor/Manor New Tech) earned his first career assist.
Hardin-Simmons (1-4) took the lead in the 24th minute, but after the 36th minute equalizer from Villarreal as the Bulldogs scored five unanswered goals in the win.
The game remained tied at one after the first 45 minutes, before a beautiful goal from
Raymond Palmer via a cross from Villarreal gave the Bulldogs the lead.
Texas Lutheran remained relentless in the offensive attack and broke through again in the 73rd minute as Briseno got on the board and scored again just six minutes later to put TLU ahead 4-1.
In the 89th minute, Briseno completed the 17th hat trick in program history off assists from Isaacson and Flores.
TLU outshot the Cowboys 21-15 while Hardin-Simmons held a 9-2 advantage in corner kicks.
Texas Lutheran returns to action on Sunday night as they return to Gustafson Field against Mary Hardin-Baylor at 7:30 PM. The match will be streamed on FloCollege. All streaming and live stats links will be available on tlubulldogs.com.
For all updates on Texas Lutheran Soccer, follow @tlusoccer on X (Twitter) and Instagram and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on X (Twitter), @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).
