For just the second time in the last eight years, the Long Beach State women’s soccer team isn’t going home a winner after its opening match.
Despite having five freshmen in the starting lineup,it was a single mistake that cost the 49ers (1-0) against Northern Arizona (0-1) in their season-opening 1-0 loss Friday night.
After a scoreless first half during which The Beach outshot the Lumberjacks 9-2, NAU was able to capitalize on a poor pass in the LBSU backfield just one minute into the second half. Haley Wingender intercepted the ball for the Lumberjacks and assisted Malia Tano, who found herself with a one-on-one matchup with LBSU goalkeeper Ashley McKeown and then found the back of the net for the game’s first and only score.
“If in the first five minutes of the second half you get scored on, it’s a little bit of a psychological blow,” head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said. “Then people kind of got out of themselves and played out of sorts a little bit. We could never get the momentum back.”
The score wasn’t entirely representative of how the game went, though, as the 49ers took more than three times as many shots as NAU and held possession for the majority of the game.
“I think we did do a lot of nice things,” Ingrassia said. “I think if we had gotten that first goal, things might have been different.”
Unlike last season, when an established lineup of seniors led LBSU to a preseason Top 20 nationl ranking, this year’s squad is incredibly young. Five freshmen started for the ‘Niners, including forwards Celeste Dominguez and Hannah Reed.
That left sophomore Elizabeth Lyons as the most experienced member of the 49er attack.
“It’s that final pass that we need to work on,” Lyons said. “I know that we’re perfectly capable of it, it’s just more of a mental focus now. It’s not a matter of can we do it – we can, we just need to focus more.”
Lyons said that while she has tried to be a source of guidance for the team’s 13 freshman, she isn’t the only one that gets looked up to.
“Every one looks up to everyone, regardless of whether you’re starting or not,” she said. “It’s more of who’s working hardest in practice … there are people that I look up to that don’t necessarily get the playing time that they want, and I look up to them because of how hard they’re working.”
The 49ers have a week off before their next match, which will be played on the road at No. 16 Santa Clara. LBSU have fallen to the Broncos in the first round of the NCAA tournament twice in the last three years, including last year. The game is set to start at 7 p.m. Friday night.