Following Sunday's 1-0 home victory against the Mississippi State Bulldogs, the Auburn Tigers (6-4-5, SEC: 2-4-1) suffered a 3-1 loss to the Texas A&M Aggies (8-5-3, SEC: 2-4-1) in College Station Friday night.
The game was relatively uneventful for the first 20 minutes, save for the four fouls. At the 23:10 mark, however, Auburn's senior forward Sydney Richards had a chance to put the Tigers up early, but Aggies goalie Kenna Caldwell made a crucial save, one of her four on the night, to keep the game scoreless.
Just seven minutes later, Hailey Whitaker floated a pass behind the Aggie defense to Maddie Simpson, who easily beat Caldwell and scored, her third of the year, to give the Tigers the 1-0 at halftime. Once again, the Auburn defense remained stout and looked well on their way to their seventh shoutout game of the 2022 season.
The second half couldn't have started off any worse for the Tigers. Just 2:43 into the second half, Maile Hayes easily beat Maddie Prohaska for her fifth goal of the year to tie the game at 1, and she wasn't finished. The Tigers never threatened to score after this, recording just two shots on goal during the second half, however, they limited the Aggies to just two shots on goal the rest of the way.
Those two shots, however, were both goals. With just 2:55 remaining in the game, Maile Hayes, from a perfect pass from Kate Colvin, split Madeline Moore and M.E. Craven and rocketed a shot passed Prohaska for her second goal of the game to give the Aggies a 2-1 lead. This would mark the first time in 1,348 minutes that Auburn had allowed multiple goals.
After Auburn's seventh and final corner kick went out of bounds with 40 seconds left Hayes played a perfect ball to Mia Pante down the right side of the field, who then played it to the middle. Carissa Boeckmann easily beat Prohaska to score the Aggies third and final goal of the night.
The three goals allowed by the stout Auburn defense is a new season high, with their previous being just two goals. With the loss, the Tigers will return home on Thursday, October 20th.for a crucial game against the Tennessee Volunteers (9-3-2, SEC: 4-0-0) at 6:30 P.M. CST.
