ABILENE, Texas -- Texas Lutheran women's soccer came away with a win in Abilene on Tuesday night, earning a 3-2 victory at McMurry in a matchup between the top two teams in the SCAC last season at Wilford Moore Stadium.
Senior
Natalia Cortez (Edinburg/Robert Vela) had two goals on the night for her first career brace, and
Lilly Noblett (San Antonio/Warren) added her first goal of the season in the sixth minute. Goalkeeper
Alysa Marquez (Miami, FL/Dr. Michael Krop) made a save as TLU dealt McMurry its first loss of the season (1-1) and improves to 3-0 on the year.
The 3-0 start is the best start for TLU women's soccer since 2015.
The Bulldogs drew first blood in the sixth minute as Noblett scored her first goal of the season following a dish from
Makenzie Ivie (Portland/Gregory-Portland) and a cross from
Aliyah Fonseca (Harlingen/Harlingen South).
Natalia Cortez doubled the TLU lead to 2-0 with the first of her two goals on a 27th minute penalty kick. Leading 2-0 at the intermission, TLU outshot McMurry 7-0 in the first half.
McMurry cut their deficit in half in the 59th minute. Cortez scored her second of the day in the 70th minute with Ivie dishing out her second assist of the night as Cortez connected on a long distance goal to give TLU a 3-1 advantage and her first career brace. The home team would not go quietly however; McMurry was awarded a penalty kick after a foul in the box as the War Hawks shrunk the gap to 3-2 in the 80th minute. With Cortez's game-winner, she moves into the top ten in program history in the category with five in her career.
The War Hawks stepped up their urgency after the penalty goal, but the Bulldogs were able to stand tall and stifle the rally. The TLU defense did not allow any McMurry shots in the final ten minutes to seal their second road victory of the season.
Texas Lutheran returns to Seguin to begin a nine-game homestand starting on Sunday, Sept. 13 against No. 14 Cal Lutheran in a first-time ever matchup at 11 AM. 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 Women's Soccer, follow @tluwsoc 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 @tlubulldogs on Facebook).
