SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Despite a scoreless first half, the McNeese women's soccer team held the upper hand with an aggressive attack but were unable to sustain its momentum in the second period as Incarnate Word scored two goals to upset the Cowgirls at Benson Stadium Friday night.

The loss drops McNeese to 6-9-1 on the season and 4-5 in Southland Conference action while UIW improved 2-11-2 and 2-4-2 in league play.

"I thought we came out and played extremely well the first half," said head coach Scooter Savoie. "We carried that momentum into the beginning of the second half and continued to pressure them. We had several opportunities and were unable to capitalize on them."
The Lady Cardinals opened their account in the 58^th minute following a header shot that struck the cross bar and fell to the ground allowing Heather McKinney to score the goal and take a 1-0 lead.

UIW tacked on another goal in the77th minute as Abigail Koenigs' header off of a corner kick hit the upper left corner to give the Lady Cardinals a 2-0 victory.

"Give UIW credit in the way they played tonight," said Savoie. "We were playing well and then gave up that first goal and were unable to recover. We were on edge after that and once the second goal was scored then all we could do was chase."

Offensively, the Cowgirls dominated the match leading in total shots 11-9 and corner kicks 12-2. UIW attempted three shots on goal while McNeese was limited to only two.

Senior Haley Lyons led the team with three shots on the night while six other Cowgirls recorded at least one shot in the game. Senior Tori Lasiter and sophomore Savannah LaRicci recorded the only two on target shots in Friday night's match.

Freshman Sara Ortiz entered into the match for senior Krista Steinbeiser who fell ill and played a valuable 48 minutes for McNeese.

McNeese will be back in action on Sunday as the Cowgirls travel to take on Abilene Christian in its final road match of the regular season. The match is slated to begin at 1:30 p.m.