On Friday afternoon, the women’s soccer team suffered its second loss of the season after falling 0-1 to No. 11-ranked UC Colorado Springs at Kellogg Stadium.
“We try to schedule great regional opponents and top 10 teams in the country – and they’re good,” head coach Jay Mason said.
Despite the loss, the Broncos were not intimidated by the highly ranked Mountain Lions and had 14 shots total, six of which were on target. Of the 14 shots, eight came in the first half.
“I thought we started well. We had good energy; we had some chances but we need to bury our chances. That’s the bottom line — we can’t let a team like that find their rhythm,” Mason said. “They’re one of the better teams in the country for a reason. So for us, it is a learning experience and we’re just getting some experience in key moments of the game that we have to get better at.”
Minutes after the referee blew the kickoff whistle, the Broncos went forward in search of a goal and had a total of six shots in the first 25 minutes. During that span, junior forward Taylor Scott had back-to-back shots in less than two minutes that resulted in a save by the Mountain Lions’ goalkeeper.
“I believe we all worked really hard today. The first half was our better half, but it’s a learning experience. We are going to go into the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) confident,” junior midfielder Jessica Llamas said. “Even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, this is going to help us.”
As the first half was coming to an end, the Mountain Lions pushed forward and almost broke through.
First, they had a shot by their junior midfielder Kelsey Lanham which hit the top woodwork, and then another shot by their freshman forward Nicolette Sandoval that was saved by Bronco sophomore goalkeeper Sydney Williams.
Coming into the second half, the Broncos kept knocking on the door in search of a goal with back-to-back shots from Scott and sophomore forward/midfielder Allyssa Larkin.
Unfortunately, their attempts didn’t have fruition as the Mountain Lions scored the only goal of the match 11 minutes into the second half.
Even though the Mountain Lions scored in the second half, Williams had four crucial saves in the match. One of the saves came right before the goal, when Williams saved a shot to her left but the rebound landed right in front of a Mountain Lions player for her to just tap it in the back of the net.
“It was a little rough today. I think I played like everyone else,” Williams said.
“We should’ve finished our opportunities. We need to stay connected as a team, but we just have to look forward to the next one and not dwell on this one.”
On Sunday, the Broncos hosted Metro State University. After two scoreless halves, the game headed into overtime.
The Broncos will head to San Diego this week to take on Northwest Nazarene at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
Then, they will face off against Seattle Pacific for the last preseason game at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
