Courtesy Photo

PHOENIX — An “own goal” is defined as the following: A goal scored inadvertently when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team.

That’s what happened in the Valley of the Sun when a TMU shot went off an Arizona Christian defender and into the Firestorm goal for the deciding tally in a 2-1 Mustang victory on Saturday, September 23.

TMU’s fourth win in a row kept the nation’s No. 11 team (4-0 GSAC, 11-1 overall) in a first-place tie in the conference with seventh-ranked Vanguard.

The game-winner, originally credited to Hailey Gomillion, came with 9:29 left to play and made the Mustangs a winner in a hard-fought contest against a pesky ACU team that is still winless (0-3-1) in conference play.

On an afternoon when the Mustangs outshot the Firestorm 19-11, highlighted by an 11-7 edge in shots on goal, they assaulted the goal early, forcing ACU goalie Tahlia Miears to make multiple saves in the first five minutes of play.

However, at the 5:36 mark in a scramble in front of the Firestorm net, TMU’s Suzanne Mabie found the ball and then the goal with her sixth score of the season. Gomillion picked up her team-high sixth assist of year on the goal.

That one-score advantage held up for nearly 10 minutes before ACU evened the match on an Irene Ledezma goal at the 15:20 mark.

Soon after, the Mustangs had several chances to unlock the tie, including one on a Mabie shot that hit the post at 18:05.

Mustang goalie Kaylee Poffek was tested, as well, throughout the rest of the half, turning away five Firestorm shots, one of those with just three seconds left before halftime.

At the break, the Mustangs had a 7-6 advantage in shots on goal.

Those numbers decreased significantly in the second half when both defenses clamped down and limited the offenses to just a few shots (TMU-4, ACU-1) on goal. Of course, one of those, the “own goal,” made it past Miears for the game-winner.

The TMU victory sets up a mid-season showdown when Vanguard visits Placerita Canyon today at 4 p.m.