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Houston\u2019s senior forward Cameryn Maddox dribbles the ball against the UCF Knights on Sunday, Oct. 19, in Houston, Texas.|Emma Christensen\/The Cougar<\/p>\n
On a hot and windy Homecoming afternoon, the Houston Cougars fought to a 1\u20131 draw against UCF, holding their position at ninth in the conference with a 2\u20133\u20133 record.<\/p>\n
UCF struck first just 13 minutes into the match after a handball call on Houston set up a free kick that led to a goal off the rebound.<\/p>\n
Houston\u2019s coach Ben Williams noted after the game that the team continues to work on defending set-piece situations, which have been a recurring challenge in several of Houston\u2019s close losses and draws this season.<\/p>\n
Despite facing one of the toughest defensive units they\u2019ve seen all year, Houston managed to find an equalizer early in the second half.<\/p>\n
Freshman forward Samira Minor executed a smooth give-and-go with junior Adelhia Ghonda down the left flank before lofting a perfectly placed shot from beyond 18 yards out to level the score at 1\u20131.<\/p>\n
From there, both teams battled to break the deadlock. Junior forward Jocelyn Chinea led several key counterattacks while also shutting down multiple UCF pushes along the right flank.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, graduate goalkeeper Lexi Gonzalez made a strong return from injury, recording two saves after conceding the early goal.<\/p>\n
UCF\u2019s defense held firm, limiting Houston to only three shots on goal and a single corner kick, which is the fewest Houston has earned all season, and their lowest total since facing No. 13 Texas Tech.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to continue to work hard as a team and put together a full 90 minutes,\u201d Minor said. \u201cToday was a step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
With three matches remaining in the regular season, Houston will continue its push to crack the conference\u2019s top eight when they host Kansas State on Thursday, Oct. 23, at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
sports@thedailycougar.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston\u2019s senior forward Cameryn Maddox dribbles the ball against the UCF Knights on Sunday, Oct. 19, in Houston,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1890,56,2742,58,57,10147,9816],"class_list":["post-13236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-big-12-conference","tag-houston","tag-houston-cougars","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-houston-soccer","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}