Blitz gets 200th career win as Tigers blank Razorbacks 4-0
Missouri earned its first win of the season.
Published Sept. 11, 2010
With the Walton Stadium crowd cheering them on for the first time in weeks, the Missouri women’s soccer team rode an early lead to a 4-0 victory against Arkansas on Friday night. The Tigers now own a 1-3-2 record, the lowest winning percentage in the Big 12.
The win was an important one for more than one reason. In addition to being the team’s first win of the season, it was also coach Bryan Blitz’s 200th career victory. Blitz now ranks 37th all-time among NCAA women’s soccer coaches with a 200-172-25 record. After the game, Blitz downplayed the record and said that gaining momentum was more important.
“It’s utmost, “ Blitz said. “We knew that, that’s why we planned the schedule that way. It’s not a given, as we know that winning is very hard and the previous games won’t let us forget that. We just wanted to get the first one.”
The Tigers opened the scoring in the 2nd minute when junior Kendra Collins broke deep into the box and scored her first goal of the season off a rebound. The rest of the half was a back-and-forth affair, but the Tigers kept the Razorbacks off the board.
Missouri struck early once again when senior captain Alysha Bonnick scored her fourth goal of the season only four minutes into the second half. Blitz said that coming out of halftime strong was important for the Tigers.
“At halftime, we talked about that,” Blitz said. “We’ve scored first a lot, and then we’ve backed off a bit and not been able to have a killer instinct. So at halftime we talked about how we have to have that aggressive mentality to get better and kill off teams in the second half.”