This coming weekend is one senior midfielder Kelsey Blincow has had circled on her calendar since the onset of the season.
Missouri welcomes two teams from the Lone Star state to Walton Stadium this weekend, hosting No. 17 Texas A&M on Friday and Texas on Sunday.
A native of Lewisville, Texas, Blincow acknowledges this weekend’s matches will be a bit more personal for her.
“I have a bunch of friends who go to school at A&M, and they give me a hard time,” Blincow said. “We’ll go back and forth after the season about what sports we beat them in and what sports they beat us in, so I definitely want to win these games.”
The weekend is also special for the Blincow family, since Kelsey’s mother is a proud graduate of Texas.
“My mom is always happy when we beat A&M in anything,” Blincow said. “My parents want us to beat every team, but especially A&M.”
Fellow Texans Alyssa Diggs, Taylor Grant, Danielle Nottingham and McKenzie Sauerwein join Blincow on the team.
The only state better represented on MU’s current roster than Texas is Missouri, which accounts for eight of the team’s 24 players.
Each of the Texan natives hails from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which has helped to create a special “Texas bond” shared by the Texans-turned-Tigers.
“We’ve played either with or against each other for a long time, so we’re definitely close since we’ve all known of each other,” Grant said. “We always mess with everyone else on the team about Texas and how good it is.”
Grant, a freshman from The Colony, Texas, has former teammates from her club team, the Dallas Texans, on both TAMU and UT. She played the last five years with these girls, and while they haven’t spoken this week, Grant admitted she is looking forward to catching up with them after each match is over.
While MU soccer’s Texas contingent is amped up a tad more for this weekend’s action, they also realize that at the end of the day, these games count just the same in the standings as all other Big 12 Conference games do.
“It’s always fun to play teams from where you’re from since we go to school so far away, but we’re going into it no differently than we would with any other Big 12 team.” Blincow said.
Coach Bryan Blitz, a Dallas native himself, downplayed the hype over this weekend’s “Texas Two-Step” of action.
“No matter who we play in conference, pretty much everyone will know somebody on the other team, and that goes for pretty much every sport.” Blitz said.
Following a weekend that saw the Tigers drop both of their matches, the opponent does not matter to Blitz, only the end result.
“We played Texas Tech. last week, we play Baylor which is another Texas team, we play Oklahoma State which is close to Texas, so I think in general that for us, they’re all just good teams,” Blitz said. “Whether it says Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas on the jersey, they’re all going to be rough so it’s just another name on the jersey.”
