Second-half comeback leads to Cougar victory

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The No. 11 ranked BYU women’s soccer team came from behind, scoring three goals in the last seven minutes of the match to win 3-2 at South Field on Thursday.

“What a game,” BYU women’s soccer head coach Jennifer Rockwood said.” That was fantastic. We said at halftime that we were going to see what we were made of in the second half and the girls really found a way to win.”

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The winning goal came in the 87th minute after Ashley Hatch’s kick got blocked and tipped to Jaiden Thornock who kicked it in for the win.

BYU (5-1-1) battled against the Sooners (3-5) in the first half down 0-2, before going on a scoring frenzy that began in the 83rd minute off a BYU corner kick by Ella Johnson. Just a minute later, Sooner Kathryn Watson was given a red card that resulted in a penalty kick for Paige Hunt, who then scored the second goal and tied up the game 2-2 in the 85th minute. 

"We had some people come off the bench that did a tremendous job for us," Rockwood said. "We made a sub to take a defender out and put another attacking player in the last ten minutes and that seemed to work for us." 

The Cougars outshot the Sooners 14-4 with Cloee Colohan and Hatch owning four shots each.  

Oklahoma scored the first goal in the 10th minute coming off a corner kick that was jumbled in front of the goal and went in. The second came in the 28th minute when Sooners Madison Saliba crossed the ball to Daisy Cardona.

“We have it in us and we have seen it before,” Rockwood said. “We waited until the very end of the game to see it again, and hopefully this is something we can build on. It certainly brings a lot of confidence. We have a tough game on Saturday.”

The Cougars will hit the road to play Long Beach State at the George Allen Field on Saturday at 7 p.m. PDT.