An energetic, pink-clad crowd packed Garvey-Rosenthal Stadium Friday night for the annual Frogs for the Cure soccer match as TCU fell to Oklahoma 1-0.
Oklahoma (4-10-1, 1-4) put pressure on TCU (5-8-3, 1-4-1) early, keeping the ball on TCU’s side of the field for the majority of the first half. The Sooners attacked the Frogs’ redshirt junior goalkeeper Vittoria Arnold with six first half shots.
The Sooners’ best look came off the foot of OU’s leading scorer, junior forward Daisy Cardona. Cardona broke away from the TCU defense with the ball and ripped a shot that sailed just over the crossbar.
The Sooners limited the Frogs chances on offense in the first half, holding TCU to one shot.
“In the first half, we weren’t very good,” TCU head coach Eric Bell said after the loss. “We didn’t compete hard enough and play the kind of soccer that we wanted to. The second half was better but still not good enough.”
The Sooners broke the scoreless tie just over four minutes into the second half when junior midfielder Abby Hodgen netted her third goal of the season on a free kick from the left of the goal.
TCU had a chance to tie the game five minutes later when both sophomore defender Rebekah Foreman and senior midfielder Maddie Payne had shots blocked directly in front of the Oklahoma goal.
“I thought they were really organized and kept good numbers behind the ball,” Bell said of the Oklahoma defense. “I thought we had opportunities in the second half to cross the ball and get the ball out of bounds and get corner kicks, but we couldn’t get those corner kicks.
“We weren’t dangerous enough.”
Arnold limited further damage minutes later when she ranged from right to left to deny freshman midfielder Paige Jacobs’s header.
TCU nearly tied the game with five and a half minutes left when senior defender Kelly Johnson took a pass from freshman forward Michelle Prokof just to the left of the goal. Johnson dribbled through traffic to find an open window and ripped a shot on goal. OU redshirt freshman goalie Kassidie Stade was able to slide two steps to her left for the save, and then fell on sophomore defender Bobbi Clemmer’s rebound attempt.
With just under two minutes to play, Arnold kept TCU’s hopes alive with a diving save on a shot from Cardona after the Sooner forward weaved through two TCU defenders in front of the Horned Frogs goal.
The Horned Frogs turned up the pressure on Stade after the intermission, outshooting the Sooners 10-4, but were unable to bury the equalizer.
TCU wore special pink uniforms in honor of the Frogs for the Cure match, as opposed to their usual white home jerseys.
“We want to create more awareness for breast cancer and the crowd was great,” Bell said. “Hopefully they will go out and get themselves checked and get mammograms to prevent that and get ahead of it.
“It was also partly to honor Kim Johnson, our SWA, and recognize her for her battle against it, and we didn’t honor her in a way I thought we could have.”
The Frogs next take the pitch at home against Iowa State on Friday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m.
