Sonoma State Star

Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: Sports

The SSU women's soccer team went 0-2 last week in Southern California against UC San Diego and CSU Dominguez Hills and are now 9-3-0 (5-2-0 CCAA) for the year.

SSU lost to UCSD last Friday as the team allowed the Tritons to score the winning goal shortly after overtime had begun, giving them the 2-1 victory.

The first half of the game appeared to be promising for the Seawolves, as junior defender Lindsay Catton scored the game's first goal in the 34th minute with a header off of an assist by freshman midfielder Libby Moyer. Catton now leads the team in goals with six.

SSU held their lead up until the 69th-minute mark of the second half when a foul was called on the Seawolves and Tritons forward Natasha Belak-Berger scored on the ensuing penalty kick to tie the game at 1.

Fouls such as these haunted the Seawolves, as twenty fouls were called against SSU while UCSD was only called for ten, with the only two yellow cards of the match issued to SSU players.

Belak-Berger proved to be a serious threat to the Seawolves, as she struck again in the sixth minute of overtime when she kicked the game-winning goal just inside the left post off a pass from Sarah McTigue to give the Tritons the 2-1 victory.

Both SSU and UCSD had 11 shots and four corner kicks for the match.

The team then played Cal State Dominguez Hills on Sunday, and were tied at two with the Toros heading into the second half thanks to goals from junior forward Tracy Webster and senior forward/defender Kayce Brawley.

The stalemate, however, was short-lived. The Seawolves came out flat footed in the second half, unable to keep up with the vaunted Toros offensive outburst that found the back of the net four times with all four goals going unanswered, resulting in an ugly 6-2 loss.

The Seawolves normally stingy defense hadn't allowed more than two goals in a game until they ran into the Toros.

"We played great in the first half in both games," Seawolves head coach Luke Oberkirch said. "But in the second half we had mental break downs that cost us. Just simple things like making the wrong decisions and allowing the other team to get good shots."

When asked if he thought anybody on the team played particularly well last week, Oberkirch mentioned the whole squad, but reiterated the fact that the team didn't play well in the second period.

"It's too hard to say," Oberkirch said. "The whole team played great in the first half, but then in the second half we didn't play very well."

The Seawolves are still in first place in the CCAA despite their two losses last week, but will probably drop down in this week's national poll from the number 12 spot that they occupied in the rankings last week.

When asked about what the team needs to work on throughout this week, Oberkirch stressed putting together a complete game for 90 minutes.

"Consistency, that's number one," he said, "We have to play for 90 minutes. We haven't played a 90 minute game in the last couple of games, (and) that's what we have to work on."

The team looks to get back on track this week when they take on the Coyotes of Cal State San Bernardino on Friday and then struggling Cal Poly Pomona on Sunday.

"We'll bounce back," Oberkirch said. "We'll bounce back. We have two tough games next week (Oct. 10 and 11), but we'll bounce back."

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