The University of St. Thomas Women's soccer team opened up the 2022-2023 season with a confident 2-0 win over University of Houston - Victoria last night at Houston Sports Park.

The Celts earned a win by asserting their physicality and grit against UHV Jaguars early on and maintained the intensity for 90 minutes. Opening up the score sheet in the 30th minute of the match, freshman Kamryn Nance made her debut loud and clear by putting the Celts up 1-0 in the first half. "I was really nervous but I needed to score and so I was happy about that", Nance said after the game.

Shortly after, another freshman Mariana Alvarez-Garcia also made her debut known by netting a goal for the Celts late in the first half. "I was happy and a little surprised but I knew it would go in. I'm looking forward to hopefully scoring some more goals for the team," Alvarez-Garcia input.

The second half's intensity did not waver for either team. During a maintained physical second half as the Celts tightened up their defense, this led to a UHV yellow card. The Celts defense gained a shutout by a hard-fought match, defending a low amount of shots from the Jaguar offense. The Jaguars did not make it easy for the Celts to keep this clean sheet, but nonetheless the Celts earned their win.

This preseason coach Nick Morrison's main focus was creating team cohesion as he had to "integrate all the new faces since we have twelve new players with us so we focused on getting them to gel and be as cohesive as we could before we started the season." Post game, Morrison stated he feels "very encouraged and excited for the next game on Saturday" given this great result.

Up next, the Lady Celts will take on Angelina College at 7:30pm at Houston Sports Park.