UTPB roundup: Men's soccer team beats Hardin-Simmons

ABILENE Carlos Guillen scored twice Saturday to help the UTPB men’s soccer team past Hardin-Simmons University 2-0 for its first victory of the season.

Guillen scored on a penalty kick in the 20th minute and then scored off a Michael Benavides assist in the 69th minute for the Falcons (1-1), who had a 12-4 advantage in shots on goal and 9-1 advantage in corner kicks.

Gage Peterson made four saves in his first shutout of the season.

The Falcons had never beaten Hardin-Simmons (0-1), which is a solid NCAA Division III program and the two-time defending American Southwest Conference champion.

UTPB played with a man advantage for more than 55 minutes of the game after Hardin-Simmons midfielder Jorge Vega received a red card.

Falcons senior defender Raul Franco also was issued a red card in the game’s 88th minute and will miss the team’s game Wednesday against Heartland Conference foe Texas A&M International in Laredo.

LADY FALCONS LOSE TWICE

DENTON UTPB’s volleyball team dropped its final two matches Saturday in the Texas Woman’s University Invitational.

The Lady Falcons (3-5) completed a 0-4 showing in the event by falling 30-25, 19-30, 30-23, 32-30 to host TWU before losing 30-22, 30-14, 30-13 to Central Oklahoma.

Against Texas Woman’s University, UTPB had a game point at 30-29 in Game 4 to extend the match to a deciding fifth game but TWU rallied to score the final three points for the victory.

In that match, Krystal Polk had 14 kills and two blocks, Molly Atnip had 10 kills and Christina Bogers had nine kills. Britney McCutchen had 38 assists while the team’s defensive effort was led by 25 digs from Mica Lamprecht, 18 digs from Ashley Alba and 16 from McCutchen.

In the loss to Central Oklahoma, the Lady Falcons attacked at just a .017 percentage as a team, had nine reception errors and three missed serves.

Atnip had seven kills and Polk had five to lead the attack and Alba had 17 digs.

UTPB will try to snap its four-match losing streak Friday when it opens action at the Abilene Christian University Classic.

UTPB RUNNERS START SEASON

CANYON The UTPB men’s and women’s cross country teams opened their season Friday at the West Texas A&M Buffalo Stampede.

UTPB’s men finished seventh in the seven-team field and the UTPB women were eighth out of an eight-team field.

Texas Tech won the men’s team title with 28 points while UTPB scored 184 for seventh. Wayland Baptist won the women’s title with 39 points while UTPB scored 191.

For the UTPB men, Raul Ramirez finished 26th in the 70-runner field with a time of 23 minutes, 5 seconds on the 4-mile course. El Paso Community College’s Robert Menjo won the men’s individual title in 20:31.

Ryan Cavender was 42nd, David Phillips was 43rd, Oscar Vela was 45th and Joshua Holland was 63rd to round out UTPB’s scoring runners.

In the women’s race, Yomi Bueno finished in 22:29 on the 5-kilometer course to lead UTPB in 26th out of 57 total runners. Wayland Baptist’s Caroline Karunde won the race in 18:07 while Texas Tech’s Katherine Priebe, a freshman from Midland High, was third in 19:51.

Rounding out UTPB’s scoring was Kayla Sutherland (31st), Monica Tavarez (40th), Kayla Hahn (48th) and Jessica Alvarez (53rd).