STARKVILLE — Aitana Martinez-Montoya knew the goalkeeper would not be expecting her to go for goal on her first touch.
With Mississippi State locked in a scoreless battle against Tennessee Tech in the second half, freshman Kennedy Husbands dished a short pass to senior Hannah Johnson, who flicked the ball backward to Martinez-Montoya as the Golden Eagles’ defense closed in.
The senior from Spain, standing well outside the 18-yard box, one-timed it and had the presence of mind to direct her shot toward the left side of the goal, where it bounced once and found the corner of the net. Martinez-Montoya’s 63rd-minute strike lifted the Bulldogs to a 1-0 victory Thursday night as they rebounded from their first loss of the season Sunday at Wake Forest.
“Hannah got that ball, she just slid it to me,” Martinez-Montoya said. “I saw the goalkeeper was a little bit shifted to her left, and I was just like, ‘If I take a touch, she’s not going to have enough time to make a save.’ So I just went for it, and it worked really well.”
MSU (4-1-0) dominated from start to finish and could easily have put the match away in the first half, but Tennessee Tech (0-4-1) defended well in the box, and goalkeeper Maggie Conrad made five saves. The Bulldogs had an 18-2 edge on shots and took seven corner kicks to the Golden Eagles’ one.
In the first five minutes alone, a shot by Ilana Izquierdo curled wide right of the goal, and Maggie Wadsworth dribbled past Conrad but her shot was cleared away by a defender. Johnson hit a post five minutes or so before Martinez-Montoya’s goal, and in the final minutes Ally Perry twice hit the crossbar, the second of which was reviewed to make sure the ball stayed out of the net.
“We played really, really well, particularly in possession,” said MSU head coach James Armstrong, whose team held the ball for 66 percent of the match. “You’re only worried as a coach when you’re not creating chances, but we do have to start putting the ball in the back of the net a little bit more often.”
Martinez-Montoya became the first Bulldog with multiple goals this year — MSU’s first eight goals of the season were scored by seven different players, plus an own goal on Aug. 18 against Northwestern State.
With the ball in Tennessee Tech’s defensive half for most of the night, Bulldogs goalkeeper Maddy Anderson had very little to do, making her only save in the eighth minute on an easy dribbler. Still, Anderson was calling out instructions to her defense throughout the match and stayed mentally focused.
“I don’t find myself as bored as much because of how much we need to organize to be preventative,” Anderson said. “If the ball goes out this way, how can we shift? I’m always trying to keep my brain engaged.”
The start of the second half was delayed by roughly 30 minutes due to lightning in the area, and Armstrong said his players were “champing at the bit” to get back onto the pitch. The Bulldogs remained unbeaten at home heading into Sunday’s match against South Alabama.
“It’s capitalizing on chances that we’re creating,” Armstrong said. “At this level, there’s so much parity. To get the goal was really, really important. We knew it was coming. It was just a matter of when. But it was nice to see the ball hit the back of the net when Aitana finally put it in. It was a nice team goal, for sure.”
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