UC Irvine Finishes Non-Conference with Defeat to No. 23 Santa Clara
September 25, 2015 | Women's Soccer
IRVINE, Calif. --- Women's soccer showed well in front of 877 Friday night in Anteater Stadium, but dropped its non-conference finale, 4-0, to 23rd-ranked Santa Clara.
"Outside of the goals, I thought we did alright," a somewhat reluctant Coach Juniper noted stating he might have sounded 'a little overpositive.' "We're not happy when we lose by four goals. The first 15 minutes we played really well, stuck with the game plan, and after that first goal went in, I feel like we just went back on our heels a little bit and that caused the second one and now we're up against it."
Those early goals happened in the 14th and 21st minutes for Santa Clara (7-3-0). The Broncos put the first shot of the match in as Megan Crosson found Julie Vass on the right of the box to make it 1-0. Dani Weatherholt and Grace Cutler teamed up on the second goal as 'Eater keeper Corey Tobin tried to cut the chance off, but Cutler beat her to the ball and punched it by to make it 2-0.
Tobin held strong the remained of the half claiming three of her five saves on the match. UC Irvine (4-6-1) began to move the needle toward its side at the beginning of the second half. Brilliant runs by Kiana Palacios and Jenny Konishi just fell far of their touch which would lead to another combo goal from Cutler and Weatherholt in the 64th minute, and the scoring finished off with a beaut headed away by Kellie Peay in the 70th minute for the 4-0 final.
"We came out well in the second half and started to get on the front foot," Juniper added. "Between the 18s, outside of the goals, I think we can take a lot of positives, but we've got to improve before next Sunday."
Juniper can hang his hat on the spirited play of Kelsee Pottorff and Clarissa Robles who each put up a pair of shots and one on frame. Palacios and Konishi dazzled at times on the offensive third.
Grayson Galbraith and her backline mates weathered a 15-shot storm from the Broncos on the night along with a 6-1 shot advantage.
"We did a lot of things right as a team," a confident Galbraith noted. "There's a lot of things we can improve on, but they're a top-25 team. Regardless of the score, I think it was pretty much an even game at points. There's things we need to fix defensive, but we have all it takes to do well in conference."
The sophomore mentioned the youth on the squad really getting its feet wet in the early going. She's one of 23 players that have been with the program for less than two years which includes seven of the starters.
"We're a super young team. I don't think people know what to expect. That's good for us, I think we're going to come in strong. We have good competition, but if we do everything right, we have the talent to do well."
"We've got to build off of every game, we've got to stick together, learn from our mistakes, and get better in the process."
Coach Juniper and the squad have time with their next match coming on Sunday, Oct. 4 in Anteater Stadium. Big West Conference play commences as UC Riverside comes in to get it going.
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