Baylor soccer readies for rematch against Arizona to open Big 12 Tournament
The slate is clean, but the pressure is on for Baylor soccer as the Bears head to Kansas City for the 2024 Sprouts Farmers Market Big 12 Soccer Tournament.
With the No. 10 seed Baylor (7-7-5, 2-5-4) will open the tournament against No. 7 Arizona (11-5-2, 6-4-1). Following a 1-1 draw against Iowa State to wrap up the regular season on Friday, the Bears finished conference play with 10 points, tied with No. 11 Arizona State but carrying the tiebreaker.
"Wish it didn't have to come down to the wire," said Baylor head coach Michelle Lenard. "I think we made it harder on ourselves than it needed to be but, in the end, we did what we needed to do to secure a spot and give ourselves a chance. Now the season starts over for everybody."
Baylor picked up just one win in its final five Big 12 matches, adding a pair of draws against BYU and the Cyclones. The Bears led the Cougars 3-1 before BYU came back with a pair of scores in the final minute. It was a different story against Iowa State as the Cyclones led early with a goal in the fourth minute and Baylor came back with a late score.
The Bears went toe to toe with the Cyclones, just outshooting them 17-16, 7-6 on goal, and Baylor junior midfielder Skye Leach provided the equalizer in the 85th minute from just outside the penalty arc and into the lower left corner of the net, clearing the heads of several defenders. It was the first score of Leach's Baylor career.
"I was really excited, but mostly just for our team because I think we came out in the second half a lot better, attacking more and just defending and pressing together," the Flower Mound native said. "So, I think we were just waiting for it to happen and once it went in, we were all excited obviously. But yeah, it felt great."
Similarly, when Baylor faced Arizona on Sept. 19, the Bears were tactically mismatched against the Wildcats in the first half, giving Arizona the 1-0 lead before coming out with adjustments in the second half. Lenard said Baylor will have to piece together complete games in order to succeed in the tournament.
"I think the good news is we didn't play that well against them and the game was 1-0," Lenard said of Arizona. "It's a winnable game. It's going to be really challenging though. We're going to have to play well. We can't expect to play average and win a game like that. But I think it matches up tactically. We have some areas that I think we can exploit against them.
"But for us is about putting together 90 solid minutes, which we've struggled to do here over the past few games. So, it's going to be our focus going into this game and hopefully more if we can advance."
The Wildcats final stretch of the regular season concluded with victories over Kansas State and the Sun Devils, which followed back-to-back defeats at the hands of Houston and Kansas. The winner of the first-round matchup on Wednesday will take on No. 2-seed Texas Tech. Arizona did not face the Red Raiders during the regular season, whereas Baylor dropped a 1-0 match to them in Lubbock.
"My dad told me last night, 'It's really hard to beat a team twice,' and I think we learned a lot from that game (against Arizona)," Leach said. "We kind of know how they play and then we learned a lot from playing with each other throughout this whole season."
The tournament will be held at the CPKC Stadium, the home field of the NWSL's Kansas City Current and the first facility in the world purpose-built for a women's professional sports team. Following the expansion of the conference, the event moved from the Round Rock Multisport Complex in Round Rock, Texas, where it was held over the last three seasons.
"It's so exciting," said graduate midfielder Kai Hayes of playing at CPKC. "Watching the NWSL and the Kansas City Current play there and the fact that we're going to be able to play on that same field of those great players. It's exciting to not only be there but around the fans that they bring in a too. It's somewhere new, it's on the big stage so we're super excited for the adrenaline that that has."
The format of the tournament was also expanded over the span of two weeks. The Bears will face Arizona at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, with matches rescheduled due to inclement weather in Kansas City. The quarterfinal against Texas Tech is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2.
Semifinals will take place next Wednesday and the title game is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 9.
Lenard noted she thinks Baylor could still pick up a spot in the NCAA Tournament if the Bears are able to make it to the semifinal. Last season, Baylor was knocked out in the first round during the Bears first postseason trip under Lenard.
"Our focus is 'Play the next game.' And as far as getting in (to the NCAA Tournament) I don't know if we have to win the whole thing, but we do have to beat a couple of teams that are ranked pretty high," Lenard said. we've looked at the potential path that we could go if we win this first round game — it's doable, it's a doable path for us. It's not easy for anyone to win a tournament like this. Four games is really hard especially given our second-round game will be against a team that's well rested but, you know, we've done it the hard way all season so why change that now."
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