ORU ties South Dakota State, routs South Dakota

TULSA — The Oral Roberts University women’s soccer team ended the regular season by tying South Dakota State 1-all on Thursday night, followed by beating South Dakota 5-1 on Sunday, with both matches at the Case Soccer Complex.

In Thursday’s match, the night opened with a conservative first couple of minutes. However, SDSU quickly began to apply pressure on the Golden Eagle backline. In a whirlwind sequence, the Jackrabbits fired two shots on goal less than 30 seconds apart, but keeper Alexa Riefer made incredible saves to keep them out of the net.

Both teams were competitive through the remainder of the first half.

In the 44th minute, Jadenn Carrillo snuck past the ORU defense as Avery Murdzek found her teammate for the goal putting SDSU up 1-0 right before the break.

Going into the second half, the Golden Eagles (7-6-5 overall, 4-3-2 in Summit League play) ramped up the intensity in an effort to change the tide of the match.

At the 66th minute, Kennedy Langebartels gave ORU a great look on goal, but keeper Jocelyn Tanner made a diving save.

A few minutes later at the 80-minute mark, Samantha Guzman nearly capitalized on a free kick right outside of the box as her shot hit the outside of the bottom left corner.

The Golden Eagles continued to apply pressure on the Jackrabbits defense, but were unable to get anything to go.

In a last ditch effort, ORU pushed the ball up the field to the SDSU box. In a crowd up players, somehow the ball spit out as Gabrielle Abbey found Kristi Keller alone on the other side of the box where she crushed the ball into the bottom left corner to tie the match at 1-all with 54 seconds remaining.

The match would end in a draw after a dramatic turn of events as Keller notched her third goal of the year and has now scored twice in ORU’s last two games.

Prior to the match, 10 student athletes were recognized for Senior Night and all of the contributions they have made the ORU women’s soccer program. Olivia Brown, Riley Baldwin, Kennedy Langebartels, Ava Crimmings, Kristi Keller, Jordyn Blackburn, Kylee Munson, Amy Alexander, Jordan Grigsby, and Ariana Fresquez made up this year’s senior class as they were honored for the legacies they’ve left at ORU.

In Sunday’s victory, the Golden Eagles kicked off the scoring early in the first half as Luci Rodriguez found Samantha See on a breakaway run at the 11-minute mark. See gathered the pass, went around her defender, and laced the ball into the top right corner of the goal with her left foot.

Six minutes later, Grigsby lobbed a pass to Guzman who was posted up on a defender. Guzman turned and fired the ball into the back of the net to give ORU the 2-0 lead.

At the 21st minute, a loose ball off an ORU corner kick turned into a ball lofted into the box by Blackburn that found Langebartels who vollied the pass straight into the goal.

The Golden Eagles would carry the 3-0 lead into the break after a hot start to the first half.

ORU would maintain their momentum in the second half. At the 55 minute mark, See scored her second goal of the match off a Baldwin assist and errant play by a Cayotes defender.

The scoring took a break for the next 30 minutes as the Golden Eagles remained in constant control of the match.

With six minutes remaining in the game, See crossed a pass from right to left that landed at the feet of Alexander. Alexander fired towards the goal but hit teammate Stella Gamper on its way into the goal to give the Golden Eagles a 5-0 lead and freshman Gamper her first career goal.

The Golden Eagles will wait for the Summit League standings to finalize before they know the opponent they will play in the Summit League championship quarterfinals.