In their final game in the regular season, Cal Poly Women’s Soccer conceded a late goal and fell to UC San Diego on Thursday, Oct. 26, at the Mustang Memorial Field.
With this loss, the Mustangs’ (8-7-3, 6-3-1 Big West) aspirations of winning a third consecutive regular season championship came to a close as they dropped to the No. 3 seed in the Big West.
The Mustangs held the Tritons (6-7-5, 4-3-3) scoreless through the first 87 minutes of the game.
The Mustangs started off the first half strong as sophomores Jessie Halladay, who leads the team in goals with 13 points this season, Emily Lieber, and Camryn Penn got multiple shots on goal but couldn’t connect. Despite their struggles, the Mustang outshot the Tritons 8-2 in the first half.
Mustangs junior goalkeeper Mackenzie Samuel held off the Tritons’ attack and made five saves on the day.
However, in the 88th minute, the Trition’s Alexis Nguyen scored the single goal in the entire game, giving the Tritons a 1-0 lead to seal the victory.
Despite the loss, the Mustangs attempted 16 shots to the Tritons eight. Head Coach Alex Crozier discussed some of the struggles and how the team will continue to move forward.
“Just knowing that we can get in front of the goal is good, we just need to finish our chances,” Crozier said briefly after the loss.
Across the season, the Mustangs had a total of 218 shots on goal this season and capitalized on 113 shots, putting them just over 51% on shot percentage this season.
Going into the Big West Tournament, the three-seed Mustangs host the sixth seed Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors \ Sunday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m. at the Mustang Memorial Field. This is their second matchup against Hawaii in the last week, which the Mustangs won 2-1 last Sunday on the road.