An Angelica Diaz goal in the 77th minute held up as the Prairie View A&M Lady Panther soccer team defeated the University of North Texas 1-0 on Saturday afternoon in Denton, Texas.
In the 75th minute, the Lady Panthers moved into UNT territory and had two scoring opportunities with consecutive corner kicks by Megan Vlam. After Vlam’s second corner, Mayra Castillo attempted to move the Lady Panthers ahead but her shot was wide as both teams remained scoreless.
Less than a minute later, Castillo found herself in another scoring opportunity as she found Angelica Diaz near the goal. Diaz took advantage of Castillo’s pass and beat the UNT goalie for the game’s lone goal. UNT wouldn’t go away without a fight as the Mean Green turned aggressive and fired off three consecutive shots towards Prairie View’s goal. However, Lady Panther goalie Jessica Garcia came up big each time with a block and two saves.
With time about to expire, UNT managed to record two more shots in the 88th minute but Garcia continued to excel at the goal with back-to-back saves to close out the match.
Garcia recorded a game-high 15 saves while Mayra Castillo added an assist and a shot attempt. Also recording shots were Abigail Escobar, Angelica Diaz, Cynthia Diaz and Claudia Martinez.
The win over North Texas marks the program’s first win in school history over a team from the Sun Belt Conference.
