It took a second for Memphis women’s soccer coach Brooks Monaghan to realize what was happening as he stood near the center of the Memphis soccer field.

His eyes were locked on the video board as a congratulatory video played for him following the No. 10 Tigers’ 5-1 season opener win against Alabama A&M on Thursday.

Monaghan had become the 17th member of an elite group of Division I college coaches who’ve reached 300 wins with the same program. Monaghan said he wasn’t even thinking about the milestone coming into the season opener, which was also the Tigers’ senior night.

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The people around him, however, had already prepared the celebration. After watching the video, which included several former players congratulating Monaghan on his accomplishment, the team dumped a Gatorade jug full of water over his head. Monaghan appreciated the sentiment.

“In life, time flies,” Monaghan said, while he stood in soaking wet clothes. “And every once in a while, it’s important that we all take a step back and recognize what we’ve all done in life. To sit here and just watch that, it means the world. Those are some special, special people that were up there. And their words go a long way with me.”

“It also means I’m old or getting old. It seems like yesterday when I first started here and here we are going into my 25th year. I’m glad to be a part of this program and hopefully, there’s a lot more wins ahead.”

Memphis hasn’t lost a season opener since 2012, and Ashley Henderson helped keep the streak alive by scoring two early goals less than 7 ½ minutes into the match. She scored the first goal in the first 1 ½ minute before Momo Nakao assisted on the second goal less than six minutes later.

The Tigers held a three-goal lead by halftime after Izzy Monck’s goal, which was assisted by Kate Howes. That gave Memphis a 3-0 advantage.

Alabama A&M got on the board with a second-half goal after Nakao had already pushed the lead to 4-0 with an assist from Finley Lavin. The Bulldogs gave Memphis a freebie by kicking the ball into their own goal to push the lead back to four. Memphis finished with 20 shots on goal while the Bulldogs had one shot and 13 saves.

“This was a game that we knew coming in we should have won,” Monaghan said. “From last year to this year, going into this season losing the players we lost (and) losing our three captains, there were question marks. … This team has a lot of potential. We’ve got a ways to go. We’ve got a lot of youth.”

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The Tigers are coming off back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances in the NCAA Tournament, and have a solid chance of making it at least that far this year. Monaghan scheduled another tough nonconference schedule to help Memphis prepare for what it hopes is a long postseason run.

The competition ramps up starting with a road outing at Missouri at 7 p.m. Sunday. It’s the first of five straight matches against Power Conference schools.

Memphis will play at Ole Miss before two home matches against Iowa State and Kansas State. It will wrap up the nonconference schedule with an away match at Tennessee and another home match against UT Martin.

“It gets real now with the competition coming up,” Monaghan said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but I look forward to the challenge. … We try to play a very strong nonconference schedule to prepare us for conference because our conference is good. ... A lot of work to do but we have a lot to work with.”