Games always look better when you find a way to win after not playing your best, and the hustle and effort A&M displayed in the last 5 minutes of the first OT period resulted in the goal by Watt. It pretty much came out of nowhere because A&M was moribund for most of the 2nd half with little possession and only a few chances on goal. The winner by Watt was fitting because she missed her two previous 1v1 chances, which was A&M's only real scoring threats all night. The first miss was a great shot that was saved by the GK after Watt made a great individual effort to steal one from the backline. The second one was setup by a perfect pass by Bates where Watt tried to bend her body to shoot with the right foot instead of her left foot, which resulted in the shot going wide. But the winner was a second chance header that she perfectly placed over the GK in the upper 90. A&M had gone almost 293 minutes without scoring a goal, the longest drought in school history if you can believe it. The offense is struggling right now, but that was a big goal by Watt to finally break through, and more importantly, beat South Carolina for the first time since 2014 in the SEC tournament. The Gamecocks have owned A&M for a long time, so it was nice to spoil their perfect home record this season. By the way, South Carolina had a pretty pathetic looking crowd for the last game of the season. Not many folks in attendance for a school that is in the Top 2-3 in attendance every year now.
The midfield continues to struggle in stringing passes together without turning it over and just kicking it to nowhere in particular. I don't know what's happened to this group in the last month, but they just aren't very good right now. Not a good sign going into the postseason. McCain must find a way to get more shots on goal from the 20-yard range because she is our best shooter. Bates had a few good runs and one excellent pass to Watt, but it wasn't consistent. Maybe I missed it but where is Kendall Bates? She hasn't played since the Kentucky game. I assume she's injured. Hajdu wasn't effective and Lopez seems to be in a funk outside of one nice cross tonight. Piper is also struggling but she might be playing through injury. This group must play better if A&M is going to be competitive in the NCAA tournament.
The backline was better tonight, with a lot of help defense and coverage from the midfielders and even Watt at times to stymie the Carolina attack. I think they only had maybe 2 real chances on goal so Morche really wasn't challenged. The marking was definitely better, although there were a few miscues. And we didn't see any bad giveaways like what happened in the Tennessee game. We do need Alston back next week though to be at our best.
I have to give the players credit for finding a way to win this game because I didn't give them much of a chance coming into it. We still aren't playing well but we did finish off 1 of our 3 chances compared to South Carolina's 0 for 2 effort. A&M finishes in a 4-way tie for 3rd place in the conference, which overall is still disappointing considering the first half of the season. But we did get the #3 seed in the SEC tournament after tiebreaker rules. Unfortunately we have to turn around and play South Carolina again on Tuesday which is not a great matchup for us. If we advance we would get a rematch with Tennessee, and then a shot at Vanderbilt in the title match. That's a tough road and right now A&M is #8 in the RPI with a shot at getting to a #2 seed if we win the SEC tourney. It would be a nice way to finish the season if we could accomplish it. Right now a matchup with either Texas or Baylor in the NCAAs is looking likely as well.