In a game between the Big West Conference favorites and the Big West leaders, the favorites showed for 70 minutes why they were supposed to win.
The rest of the time, the leaders proved that hype isn’t everything.
After opening up a 2-0 first-half lead on Cal Poly, the Long Beach State women’s soccer team couldn’t put the game out of reach. It gave up three goals in the final 20 minutes of regulation before surrendering the game-winning score 16 minutes later in double overtime, falling to the Mustangs 4-3 on Sunday afternoon at George Allen Field.
It was a crushing loss for a team that hadn’t lost at home since 2010 and was projected to run away with the Big West title.
“It feels like it should feel after you lose a 2-0 lead,” head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said.
What makes the loss even harder for the 49ers is the sheer number of missed opportunities they accumulated. The ‘Niners (9-5, 2-2 Big West) outshot Cal Poly (7-5-1, 4-0 Big West) 24-14 for the game and only scored on three of their nine shots on goal. Those don’t include a downright unlucky amount of shots off the goalpost or breakaway chances that failed at the last moment.
“If it’s 2-0, they’re still in the game. 3-0? Kills it,” Ingrassia said. “I thought we should have put it away a long, long time ago. I don’t know how many posts we hit today. I lost count.”
The 49ers owned the first half. After a Renee Mediola goal five minutes in put LBSU on the board early, Nadia Link scored her sixth goal of the season 33 minutes later to give her team a 2-0 lead going into halftime.
At that point, it already looked as if the ‘Niners should be ahead by four or five.
The second half rolled along, and it was more of the same. A great chance here, a missed opportunity there, and despite earning almost all of the possession time, the 49ers were still nursing a two-score lead.
Then the bottom fell out.
Cal Poly got on the board in the 71st minute, tied the game in the 74th and took the lead in the 82nd. The 49ers looked as if they had been shocked awake by an alarm clock with a loose wire before they collected themselves enough to score the equalizer one minute before time expired.
LBSU then found itself in the overtime of a game that should have ended in the first 30 minutes.
The first overtime passed with both sides knocking on the door but failing to break through. In the second overtime, Link nearly scored the golden goal when she had a one-on-one matchup with the Cal Poly keeper. She hit her shot just a bit too far left, however, and the ball rolled harmlessly past the post and out of bounds.
It only took a few seconds more for the Mustangs’ Sarah Epps to complete the upset of a team that was ranked as high as eleventh in the nation earlier in the season.
“Right now, it stinks,” Ingrassia said. “But we’ll get to Monday, when we can regroup a little bit. I think they understand that they have everything to play for still.”
That includes a chance to play in the Big West tournament. The 49ers may have lost the opportunity to finish regular-season conference play as the top seed, but it’s the winner of the end-of-year tournament that gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament immediately afterward.
Unfortunately for LBSU, injuries are a major factor in whether that goal can be accomplished.
“Marie [MacKenzie] has a torn ACL, and Jordan [Nelson] has an torn meniscus,” Ingrassia said.
In addition to those two starters, Ingrassia will have to find a temporary replacement for Mediola, who went out with a concussion halfway through the game.
“That definitely hurt in terms of the rotation and having that presence in there and having that body,” he said.
The losses may hurt, but the injuries appear to be hurting more. LBSU has a week to recover before its next set of games, however, as it will play UC Davis and Pacific on the road next weekend.