Goals were the name of the game for Texas Tech soccer over the past week.
On Aug. 20, Tech shut out New Mexico State 5-0. That outing was followed by a similar performance Thursday evening when the Red Raiders annihilated the Ball State Cardinals 4-1, powered by a historic hat trick from junior forward Ashleigh Williams.
Williams became the second player in Tech history to have multiple hat tricks in her time in Lubbock, joining Jessica Fuston, who got her second hat trick in 2011. Even Tech legends like Janine Beckie and Kirsten Davis didn’t have two hat tricks in their career.
Head coach Tom Stone spoke about the Allen, Texas, native’s willingness to score the ball at such a high level.
“She’s just determined, right,” Stone said. “She’s a lot of things, but determined is probably at the top of the list. She doesn’t relax until she gets on the scoreboard.”
Stone also commented on Williams’ progression and evolution throughout her career at Tech.
“She’s got a few different ways to score now than she had when she came in as a freshman, and needed to happen a certain way,” Stone said. “Sophomore (year), a few different opportunities presented themselves, and now she’s scoring off different things with her head, off crosses…so her game has improved each and every year for the three years, and we’re lucky to have her.”
That wasn’t the only record broken in the Red Raider victory.
Macy Blackburn, a redshirt sophomore out of Keller, Texas, recorded three assists in the contest, the first time a Red Raider had at least three assists in a game since 2014.
Blackburn went down with an injury that sidelined her for the majority of last season, diminishing the confidence of the team significantly. Blackburn said now that she’s healthy, she is already starting to see the effects of the squad’s elevated passing game in comparison to the season prior.
“It’s been really awesome. I mean, we can see it’s obviously working,” Blackburn said. “So that’s something we want to keep doing, and we have the players. Our midfield is amazing, our backline, I mean every line we have incredible players that know how to pass the ball, that know how to connect. If we keep playing like this, we’re going to keep scoring. It’s inevitable.”
The success continued Sunday afternoon as Tech obliterated Utah State 3-0 powered by another two goals from Williams. Her first goal came within the first two minutes of the game, and she said she and the team talk about putting games away early.
“We talked a lot about putting things away early so we’re not having to either come back or push ourselves even more, like, harder to catch up,” Williams said. “So that was good for us. We’re excited.”
The Red Raiders upgrade to a 3-0-1 record, and they’ll have a date with the University of North Texas on Thursday that’ll serve as the fourth game of their five-game homestand.
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