FORT WORTH, Texas - For the Lady Rams soccer team, already established as the fourth seed for the Red River Conference tournament on Tuesday, the regular season finale against Texas A&M-International would serve as a tune-up for the playoffs. The men, with a 5-11 record for the season, would be playing for nothing but pride.

Both emerged victorious on Sunday. The men won 1-0, and the women won 7-2.

For the men, freshman goalkeeper Oscar Burciaga made 13 saves against the Dustdevils, and had a little help from midfielder Jose Melendez to post his second shutout of the season. Early in the first half, with the score tied at zero, a shot by a Dustdevil forward got past Burciaga, but Melendez was in position to turn it away just before it crossed the goal line. A few minutes later, Wesleyan scoring leader Travis Mauldin took a pass from Nathan Mutchler and found the net for his 10th goal of the season.

“The guys played out of their minds,” said head coach Steve Jones. “This wasn’t the easiest place to play. The field was wet and the crowd was rowdy. Knowing this was the last game of a long season, they could have easily lost focus. But they closed out the season with a win, and they did it on the road. I’m really happy about that.”

Mauldin, with 10 goals on the season, finishes in a tie for second in the Red River Conference. His average of .59 goals per game puts him alone in second. The conference player of the week for October 8-14 also finishes the year in the top five in points and points per game.

The Rams end the season at just 6-11, but only allowed two more goals than they scored on the year, and Coach Jones sees a lot of promise for next season.

“Of the eleven games we lost,” he said, “eight of them were by one goal. Now that these guys have had a year to learn the college game, we’ll start winning more of those.”

The Lady Rams, led by three-time conference player of the week Jessica Carrion, crushed the Lady Dustdevils, 7-2. Carrion had another monster game, scoring the first six Wesleyan goals before being pulled with twenty minutes remaining.

With Wesleyan guaranteed the fourth seed in Tuesday’s conference tournament no matter what the outcome of this game, Jones, also the women’s head coach, used the match as an opportunity to get one last look at the team before the post-season. It also gave him a chance to see how the team would react to the loss of Jessica Elder, who suffered a broken leg in Friday‘s game.

“They played well,” said Jones, “surprisingly well under the circumstances. I’m not saying Jessica’s loss won’t be felt against [first round playoff opponent] Bacone, but if we can play like we did today, I’ll be happy.”

Carrion opened the scoring ten minutes into the contest with her conference-leading 20th goal of the season. She scored again before the Lady Dustdevils could even put a shot on goal. After Carrion’s third of the contest, TAMU-I managed to sneak one past Wesleyan keeper Katrina Fishback, but Carrion countered almost immediately to give Wesleyan a 4-1 lead at halftime.

Less than 20 second into the second half, Carrion struck again. The Lady Dustdevils took the kickoff and sent the ball deep into Wesleyan’s half of the field, but defender Allison Enrriques hit Carrion with an outlet pass and she charged in and scored one-on-one against the TAMU-I keeper. Coach Jones pulled her from the game with 20 minutes remaining after scoring her sixth of the contest. With only ten players on the field, Uduma Ogidi then scored to give the Lady Rams a 7-1 lead. TAMU-I closed out the scoring with a meaningless goal in the last minute of play.

“They’ve known for two games now that they were going to be in the playoffs,” said Jones. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect from them because of that. As it turned out, I got just what I was hoping for. These last two games have been their best efforts of the season.”

Assists for Wesleyan went to Enrriques (2), Jessica Killen (2), Ogidi (1), Tyler Mabry (1), and Fishback (1). Fishback also made four saves in her ninth victory of the season. For Carrion, the six goals give her a season total of 25, and an average of 1.56 per game. Both are far and away the best totals in the conference. She also finishes the year with a 3.31 points per game average. No one else in the conference is above 2.

Wesleyan finishes the regular season at 9-7, 2-3 in Red River conference play. They will face Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma on Tuesday in the first round of the Red River Conference tournament. The winner will advance to meet the winner of Northwood vs. College of the Southwest on November 8 on the campus of the higher-ranked team.