Texas Soccer Stuns No. 1 Vanderbilt 2-1 for the Program's First Win Over a Top-Ranked Team
Carolina Swann scored 43 seconds in, Ava McDonald made it 2-0, and Texas held on in Pensacola for a program first. No. 25 Arkansas waits in Thursday's SEC semifinal.
PENSACOLA, Fla. — Texas needed 43 seconds to announce itself. Freshman midfielder Carolina Swann scored in the opening minute of Wednesday's SEC Tournament quarterfinal, and the Longhorns went on to beat top-seeded Vanderbilt — the No. 1 team in the country — 2-1, the first win over a top-ranked team in program history, HookEm Headlines reported.
Swann's goal, assisted by Alicia Riggins and Ava McDonald, came with the clock reading 00:43. McDonald scored herself less than 30 minutes later to put Texas up 2-0, and the Longhorns' defense carried the lead deep into the match. Vanderbilt, which had beaten Texas 5-0 in the regular season, pulled one back with less than 11 minutes remaining but could not find an equalizer.
The win is the signature result of head coach Margueritte Bates's first season. Texas finished 4-12-1 a year ago under Ange Kelly; Bates, who won a national championship in her first year as a head coach at UCLA, has the Longhorns at 9-4-6 and in the SEC semifinals for the first time in two years — Texas won this tournament in 2024.
The reward is a quick turnaround: Texas faces No. 25 Arkansas in the semifinal on Thursday, Nov. 12, at 3:30 p.m. CT at Ashton Brosnaham Soccer Complex in Pensacola, on SEC Network. Arkansas won the regular-season meeting 3-1 — though Vanderbilt's 5-0 regular-season result did not survive this tournament either. The winner plays the South Carolina-Alabama winner in Sunday's championship game, with the NCAA selection show set for Monday at 3 p.m. CT.
