Last Thursday University of New Mexico soccer player Elizabeth Lambert returned to the pitch for the first time since she was captured on video physically bullying members of the BYU women’s soccer team during a game last November. Lambert was suspended from the team after the video went viral on the web and in the national media.

In a stunning coincidence, the night after Lambert’s return, an ugly spat broke out between two players on the Oregon and Oklahoma State women’s soccer teams in Eugene, Oregon - with the altercation captured on video by KVAL-TV in Oregon.

Though the incident was only innocuously noted in a game account on the Univ. of Oregon website:

Oregon senior defender Mercedes Walters and OSU forward Kyndall Treadwell were sent of the pitch in the 63rd minute following a skirmish which resulted in both receiving red cards. The two teams played with 10 players each for the remainder of the contest.

Curtis Anderson of the EUGENE REGISTER-GUARD also downplayed the brawl but did get a muted reaction from Oklahoma State coach Colin Carmichael:

The free kick was set up after an Oregon foul at the 103:34 mark, one of 20 called in an extremely physical match that saw the ejection of two players — UO senior defender Mercedes Walters and OSU junior forward Kyndall Treadwell — after both were issued red cards for fighting in the 63rd minute.

“It was very physical,” OSU coach Colin Carmichael said. “I thought both teams played hard in the first half, and the tone was set maybe by the way the game was let go.

“Later on, the kids got a little over-aggressive on both sides.

“Oregon is a great team and we’re thankful to get out with a win.”

“A little over-aggressive“? Hmm.

What’s amusing about the reporting of the game is that 99.9% of persons made aware of the match care only about the nasty altercation between Treadwell and Walter. The result of any women’s soccer game is irrelevant when you have two female student-athletes hair-pulling and knocking each other upside the head. Especially the night after the sport’s most notorious bully returned to her college team.

So far the incident involving Walters and Treadwell hasn’t attracted nearly the attention Lambert’s activities produced, though the LONDON MIRROR reported of the Walters-Treadwell melee:

It’s been absolutely ages since we had a good women’s college ’soccer’ fight. Thanks to Mercedes Walters of Oregon Ducks and Oklahoma State Cowgirls’ Kyndall Treadwell for making old men very happy…

The Oregon-Oklahoma State altercation isn’t nearly as one-sided as what Lambert pulled against BYU. But there’s always the chance the video of the Walter-Treadwell altercation could gain traction in the national media.

If so, there could be some revisionist, additional justice for women’s soccer’s most recent pitch pugilists.