STEPHENVILLE, Texas — A little bit of everything happened during Thursday evening’s women’s soccer game between Northwestern State and Tarleton State.
Everything except for a goal.
NSU (1-1-1) played Tarleton (1-1-1) to a scoreless draw in a weather-shortened contest at the Tarleton Soccer Complex.
The game had weather delays, power outages and goals wiped away, in a wild night, one which saw each team record multiple golden chances to score but neither found back of the net.
“It was easily the strangest, weirdest game, in my entire career,” Northwestern’s third-year head coach Ian Brophy said. “There was a lightning delay followed by a short re-start and then a power outage and I thought we were going to call the game at that point.
“And then we kept playing just to get it cut short by lightning at the end. It was the strangest game I’ve been in during my career, without question.”
Tarleton outshoot NSU 4-0 before lightning entered the area and the game had an hour and 45 minute delay.
After the delay, the Demons went to work. NSU used the delay to re-group and came out of the delay with a purpose.
The Demons attempted the final five shots of the half, controlling the final 33 minutes.
“I just think we needed to re-group a little bit,” Brophy said. “I don’t think we started the game particularly well in terms of some of the things we try to do and try to play our game, and we got away from that a little bit. We just talked about getting back to the basics of what we do well.”
In the 58th minute, the lights went out, and the teams had another delay, as the lights were being worked on.
It appeared as though NSU did take the lead in the 63rd minute, as Emily Mougia had an impressive move to dribble the ball into scoring range before passing it to Paige Baumgartner. From near the end line, Baumgartner passed it into the middle for Housane Soukou, who scored from the middle of the box. But the official ruled Baumgartner was offside to nullify the goal.
The Demons had one more corner, their ninth of the match, but it was booted away, and neither team recorded a shot attempt the remainder of the game, as more lightning invaded the area in the 71st minute, and the game was called, ending in a scoreless draw.
Overall, the Demons out-shot the Texans 9-5 with Senatore and Gundin each attempting two to lead NSU.
Next up for NSU is its home opener, as it comes back to Natchitoches to take on Alcorn on Sunday at 1 p.m.