Oral Roberts defeated Sam Houston State 2-0 in the opening match of the Southland Conference Soccer Tournament at Cowgirl Field in Lake Charles, La., on the campus of McNeese State.
The Golden Eagles will next take on No. 1 seed Stephen F. Austin tomorrow at 4:30 p.m. in the first semifinal match of the day.
"I thought early on we created some good chances," said SHSU head coach Tom Brown. "We were just kind of hit an miss as far was being able to posses the ball. We thought we had a goal there late. We had some good movement to get into position, but unfortunately it was called offside."
Oral Roberts struck for the first goal of the match in the 32nd minute when junior midfielder Jennifer Abernathy turned on an unassisted loose ball in the box for the early 1-0 lead. It was Abernathy's fourth goal on the year.
ORU doubled its lead in the 60th minute when freshman midfielder Ashley Martin took an assist from fellow freshman Kayla Keller. The goal was Martin's fourth and Keller's fourth assist on the season.
"I thought they did a good job of putting pressure on our back and getting into space," Brown said. "Over the 90 minutes, I just don't think we had that attacking mentality. The last 10-15 minutes as we were pushing the ball forward I thought some of our young players did a very good job of knocking it around and trying to get into that space."
For the match, Sam Houston took seven shots compared to Oral Roberts' six but the Golden Eagles managed five of their shots on goal. In the net, ORU's Helen Erb and Sam Houston's Kylie Hambleton each registered three saves.
Oral Roberts improves its season record to 12-6-2 while the Bearkats finished the year 7-11-1.
