Courtesy of Kansas State Athletics
MANHATTAN, Kansas – Trailing by a goal in the late stages of Thursday's Big 12 opener, K-State received a thunderous goal from fifth-year senior Aliyah El-Naggar to send the Wildcats to a 1-1 draw with Cincinnati at Buser Family Park. The draw ended a four-match losing streak for the Wildcats and marks the second straight season K-State has opened league play with a draw.
HOW IT HAPPENED
- K-State (2-4-3) held the Bearcats off the scoreboard for the first 63 minutes, but in the 64th minute Cincinnati (1-4-3) found twine for a 1-0 lead. Laura Zemberyova squared up a shot from outside the 18-yard box and found the upper left corner of the frame for her second goal of the season.
- The Wildcats were pushing an attack forward when the Bearcats were whistled for a foul roughly 30 yards from their goal. El-Naggar stepped over the ball and ripped a thunderous live drive free kick that whizzed past Cincinnati goalkeeper Anna Rexford and off the right post, banking into the back of the net.
- This was El-Naggar's second goal this season and the fourth of her K-State and collegiate career. The effort was the Mason, Ohio, native's second career game-tying goal, setting a new school record for career game-tying goals.
- Cincinnati's last ditch attempt by Megan Smith with under five seconds to play from the edge of the 18-yard box was saved by K-State goalkeeper Murphy Sheaff to preserve the draw. Sheaff ended the night with six saves.
- The Bearcats outshot K-State, 15-8, including a 7-1 edge in shots on goal.
QUICK FACTS
- With its draw on Thursday, K-State has tied the school record for draws in a season with three; joining the 2016 and 2022 seasons.
- K-State owns an overall record at Buser Family Park of 19-36-7 and are 1-3-2 this season.
- The Wildcats are 8-46-6 in Big 12 matches.
- This was the first meeting between K-State and Cincinnati.- The Wildcats are 0-5-2 in its Big 12 openers, registering draws in the last two league openers.
- K-State owns a 2-2-1 record this season in matches played on Thursdays and are 9-22-3 in its eight-season history on the day.
- Head coach Mike Dibbini owns a career coaching record of 299-156-49. He is 34-78-18 in eight seasons as the only head coach in K-State history.
- K-State is 1-2-3 this season and 13-27-15 in its history when tied at halftime.
PLAYER NOTES
- With her goal, El-Naggar moved into a tie for seventh on the K-State career goals scored with four.
- El-Naggar owns 10 points in her K-State career and ranks tied for ninth on the K-State career list.
- She is the only player in program history to score two game-tying goals in a career and the only Wildcat to register a game-tying goal in at least two different seasons.
- Senior Maddie Weichel played in her 60th career match on Thursday. She is the ninth player in program history to play in 60 or more career matches and remains in sole possession of ninth in program history for career matches played.
- With their starts on Thursday, Weichel and junior Kenzi Gillispie are tied for eighth in school history for career starts with 46.
- Sophomore Andra Mohler made her first career start on Thursday.
FROM THE HEAD COACH
K-State Head Coach Mike Dibbini
On his thoughts on the game …"It was a good response. I felt the game was played a lot in the middle third of the field, and they scored a nice goal. But then we kept grinding and we kept battling and we responded really well just to equalize in the game. It could have gone either way, but it's nice to get a point. A result to open up with the Big 12."
On the offensive improvement…"We're working on some things in training to allow us to create more chances. I thought we had some good chances today. I wish we would have executed a couple more or at least one more. But you know, it's in the game of soccer those goals don't come that often, but it was great to get that goal that Aliyah (El-Nagger) put away to equalize it."
On getting over a 4-game losing streak…"It was great, we got a lot of young players that have the ability to do really good things. And if we can avoid mental errors, and execute our chances, if we do those two things consistently the sky's the limit. It's just a matter of this group needing more experience and more time together. Hopefully, we've learned from this situation, which we did, we responded really quick to get an equalizer and I think that's it. That's a big step in the right direction."
On where he has seen the most improvement…"They've had a very competitive schedule, and they've faced different types of opponents. I think going into this game, we got a little bit of the jitters out. It's a big challenge. How do you settle them and continue to play and focus on what we do best? And that's what we did today, we focused on us. And I felt like we got the result."
On younger players getting a chance to step-in…"Great. I mean, we had a couple players step up. I thought Andra Mohler came in today and was significant for us and contributed on the attack and created some good chances. We've got our young players stepping back in hopefully next week. I think they've been cleared and we're excited to get them back."
FROM THE FIELD
Fifth-year Senior Aliyah El-Naggar
On getting to score that goal against her hometown…"It was pretty cool, I can definitely recognize some of the younger players. Because I'm a fifth-year, they're pretty young, I don't have anyone in my class that I really know. But it was just fun getting to play my hometown, it's weird I'm used to being there. But getting that goal too, it was really nice against them."
On her goal…"Well, at first right when I lined up for it Andra (Mohler) was in line right where I was about to hit it, and I was like, 'Scoot over, I'm going to nail your player in the head if you don't scoot over,' and she ended up scooting over and right when I hit that ball, I kind of knew that it was going to go in, it just felt really good."
On staying positive throughout the game…"I think this week was a lot about focusing on us. We've noticed as a team that the past four games we've been focusing a lot on the other team when we really need to focus on ourselves and what we do best. So in the locker room, we were just like, 'hey, keep playing our game. We're putting them under pressure. They're getting nervous.' So basically just keep doing what we're doing. And especially when that goal went in and the level didn't go down, it's been going down in the past, and so it was nice that we almost kind of raised it a little bit."
UP NEXT
Following a weekend off, K-State begins a three-match road trip on Thursday night, as the Wildcats visit Oklahoma. Match time is 7 p.m. Thursday's match will air on Sooner Vision on ESPN+.