Big 12 play continued in Sunday’s matchup between the conference’s top team, West Virginia, and sixth-place Arizona with the Mountaineers entering the match undefeated in conference play.
The Wildcats and Mountaineers played to a 1-1 draw at Mulcahy Stadium.
Arizona coach Becca Moros was pleased with her team’s effort.
“A draw’s a solid result against a team that has momentum and has been playing really well all season,” Moros said of West Virginia, which is 8-2-2 overall and 4-0-1 in Big 12 play.
“Overall, I’m really happy, we played good football, we played together, and we did a great job as a team.
West Virginia was coming off a 2-1 win at Arizona State earlier last week.
Arizona’s previous match was 2-0 home win against the Cincinnati Bearcats, and they hoped to use that victory to build some momentum down the back half of the season.
The Wildcats are 7-3-2 overall and 2-2-1 in the Big 12.
Arizona is the only team in the Big 12 to take points off the Mountaineers since conference play began on Sept. 12.
“We can take a lot of positive energy from a draw,” Arizona forward Nicole Dallin said. “West Virginia is a good team but I don’t think they were really ready for us to come out and look as good as we did. I think we played better soccer than them, and they didn’t expect us to be as good as we are.”
West Virginia drew first blood in the 23rd minute after midfielder Lilly McCarthy corralled a loose ball that hadn’t been properly cleared from a corner kick, and fired it past Arizona keeper Olivia Ramey.
West Virginia would carry that lead into halftime, although the Wildcats would provide an equalizer nearly immediately once play had restarted.
In the 47th minute, the ball found Dallin on the edge of the box, where she would put an absolute beauty past West Virginia keeper Mackenzie Smith.
It was Dallin’s sixth goal of the year, and breaks the tie she had with Gianna Christensen for Arizona’s top scorer this season.
The deadlock would hold for the remainder of the game, but with the quality of the two teams, there is a potential rematch on the horizon once the championship tournament begins at the end of the season.
The game got chippy in the waning minutes.
“There was a little bit of a tussle right at the end, and I think a little bit of anger can bring a team together and get everyone fired up,” Moros said. “If we can carry that energy going forward, we can use it to fuel us at the end of the season.”
Arizona continues its home stretch on Friday in a game against BYU (4-4-3, 2-1-1) at 7 p.m at Mulcahy Stadium.
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