By Wes Bloomquist  ||  wes.bloomquist@angelo.edu
SAN ANGELO – Natalie Nielsen made four saves and the No. 11-ranked Angelo State soccer team scored three second-half goals to run away with a 3-0 non-conference win over Texas-Permian Basin on Sunday at the ASU Soccer Complex in the team's sixth shutout of the season.

The Rambelles (7-0-1) have now outscored their opponents 31-3 this season are 5-0-1 at home with a 23-2 goal advantage in those games. ASU outshot the Falcons (1-6-1) 25-4 in the game with Loni Byers, Jenny Kotowych and Sierra Anderson providing the goal-scoring. ASU, which opened Lone Star Conference play on Friday with a 0-0 tie against Midwestern State, has not allowed a goal in the last 466 minutes of play.

"We are happy about getting the win, the shutout and the three goals, but I also think we decrease our standard of play in the game," ASU head coach Travis McCorkle said. "That can be a dangerous thing and is something we have to avoid. We have to play more consistent."

Byers delivered the first goal of the game and her fourth of the season in the 52nd minute of play off an assist from Brittany Martinez. The pass from Martinez led Byers who raced about 30 yards before delivering the strike into the net. Kotowych added to the ASU lead in the 75th minute when she took a shot in the box and deflected it off a UTPB defender's head into the goal. The goal was Kotowych's third of the season the eighth of her career.

"We did what we needed to do to get forward to get good chances," Kotowych said. "We wanted to score more goals. I think we may have gotten a little complacent because of the start to the season and we may have let off a little."

Just two minutes after Kotowych's goal, Anderson would add the final goal of the game off a headed pass from Tiffany Dang. Anderson's goal was her fourth of the season and the 13th of her career at ASU. Byers led ASU with six shots, while Kotowych had four shots and Callie Smith and Brianne Brown sent three shots toward the Falcon goalkeeper.

In goal, Nielsen recorded her second shutout of the season with her four saves. The ASU offense produced 25 shots, 12 in the first half and 13 in the second, with 12 of the shots being on goal. UTPB was limited to only one shot in the second half with the strong defensive play of Smith, Dakota Briseno, Martinez, Chloe Contreras, Molly Warren and Shay Williams.

"I thought we did a good job of staying on our marks and staying tight as a defense," Briseno said. "We continued to help cover each other to get another shutout. We needed to get this win and get back to who we really are."

Angelo State will conclude a six-game home stand next weekend with a pair of Lone Star Conference games against Texas A&M-Commerce and Texas Woman's. The Rambelles face the Lions at 7 p.m. on Friday before taking on TWU at 2 p.m. next Sunday at the ASU Soccer Complex.

"Our conference is too difficult to think that we can be up and down in our performance," McCorkle said. "I'm hoping that we can have a great week of training and increase our standards back to where they were a couple of weeks ago so that we can continue performing at the level that we know this team is capable of."