BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. — In its 2021 Western Athletic Conference debut, the Chicago State women's soccer team fell to the UTRGV Vaqueros, suffering a 1-0 defeat thanks to a goal by Shentatious Knox at the 29th minute .
To start off the first half, both teams produced several opportunities to open up the scoring, yet with two stellar saves by Alexa Seiler, the game remained scoreless for the majority of the half.
It wasn't until the 29th minute of the game that the Vaqueros finally opened up the scoring with a dashingly beautiful finish by Knox on the right-top corner with an assist by Emily Zapata.
The rest of the half saw the Cougars attempting to claw their way back with no avail, heading into halftime trailing 1-0.
In the second half, the Cougars came out firing, producing several goal-scoring chances but once again failed to capitalize in the early stages.
Tensions then rose as the Vaqueros held onto a one-goal lead with the Cougars creeping close to a game-tying goal. This led to a 77th minute tackle by the Vaqueros' Victoria Mayo onto Sara Quevedo that produced a red card and ejection.
The Vaqueros were now forced to play the last 13 minutes of the game with only 10 players on the field.
However, UTRGV remained unfazed by this and defeated the Cougars, 1-0.
The Cougars next face Lamar University on September 26th at 12 p.m. at the SeatGeek Stadium turf field.
