Arizona women’s soccer lost by three goals for the third time this season after falling to No. 2 Stanford (12-1-1) 4-1 at home on Thursday.
“We have to put in a 90-minute effort into every game and I don’t think we did that today,” head coach Lisa Oyen said. “I think there was some nerves playing against a team with Stanford on their jersey and the ranking along with that, which we saw in the first half. Then we came back a little bit in the second half which is good to see and frustrating to see.”
For the first time this season, Murphey Field was filled as 1,021 people were in attendance.
Despite the ongoing cheers, the Wildcats (5-7-3) struggled offensively throughout the first half forcing Arizona’s defense to put in work.
Not only did Stanford’s offensive line constantly find holes in Arizona’s defense, the Wildcats kept giving forwards space, allowing time for the Cardinal to set up one on-goal shot attempt after another.
In the 19th minute of the first half, Stanford finally connected with the back of the net after Chioma Ubogagu shot the ball just past junior goalkeeper Gabby Kaufman’s reach in the upper right hand corner of the goal.
Uubogagu’s goal would be the only one of the half as the Cardinal led 1-0.
Stanford’s quick pace and solid ball control limited the Wildcats to six shot attempts, three of which were on goal to Stanford’s 10 attempts with six on goal.
Even though the Cardinal scored on Kaufman, she broke her personal record for saves in the first half with five.
The momentum stayed in Stanford’s favor going into the second half as Lo’eau LaBonta scored her second goal of the season off the assist from Laura Liedle in the first three minutes.
The Wildcats were now down by two as time ticked away.
The next 20 minutes would prove detrimental to Arizona as the Cardinal scored two additional goals taking a commanding 4-0 lead.
The first one came from Alex Doll as she scored her fourth goal of the season off the assist from Ubogagu.
Then, just 13 minutes later Stanford lined up for the corner kick. As it sailed into the box Alina Garciamendez headed the ball in making it just past Kaufman’s reach for her fifth goal of the season.
Junior forward Candice Osei-Agyemang waited for Stanford’s center backs to make a mistake. In the 73rd minute Osei-Agyemang got her opportunity and put the Wildcats on the board scoring a one-on-one goal and her second for the season.
“It was tough being the top striker and running back and forth in between, but I guess it paid off,” Osei-Agyemang said. “It felt great, but at the same time we were down already so it was like let’s go back and restart again quickly and try and get some more before time runs out.”
The closest Arizona came to scoring another goal was in the last three minutes of the game when junior midfielder Ana-Maria Montoya scored a diving header. However, the referee waved the goal off saying Montoya was offsides.
“We should have had the second goal,” Montoya said. “It should have been 4-2. The game is over now, so we just have to take the positives away. The last 15 minutes were amazing and we played with a lot of confidence. We just need to take that confidence into the last five games.”
-Iman Hamdan can be reached via Twitter @imanhamdanDW
