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Box Score
The Cougar women deserved to
catch a break.
Despite playing very solid soccer for the first six games of the
year, CSUSM’s women’s soccer team found itself with a disappointing
1-4-1 record heading into Thursday’s match against Cal Baptist.
Coming off a physically demanding week that saw the Cougars lose
just 1-0 to the top ranked team in the NAIA, the squad did not play
its best soccer on Thursday – but Coach Ron Pulvers’ squad still
managed to post a 1-0 win and get back on the winning track.
“To be honest, I didn’t feel terribly good about the way the girls
played today,” noted Pulvers. “But we did get the result, and that’s
the bottom line.”
That’s not to say, however, that CSUSM didn’t earn the victory. The
Cougars continued to play strong defense, and redshirt freshman
keeper Jane Drury was flawless in net en route to posting her second
shutout of the season. The defenders in front of her – Lica
Martinez, Breanna Brenton, Annica Perez, and Michele Ramirez –
played a very strong, game in limiting Cal Baptist to just one shot
on goal.
Absent from that group was Lucia Asbury. The sophomore track star
has played defense since the first couple games of last season, but
on Thursday Coach Pulvers decided to bring her off the bench as a
forward, and put her considerable athletic ability to use in scoring
goals rather than stopping them.
And it worked. Just before halftime, the Cougars earned a corner
kick. Taylor Ziencina lined it up and struck the ball high into a
large crowd in front of the net. Asbury out-jumped the Cal Baptist
defense, and got off a clean header that beat the keeper.
“It was a great, athletic effort,” commented Coach Pulvers.
That would be all the Cougars would need, as the defense locked down
the entire second half to seal the win. Now 2-4-1 on the season, the
Cougar women will look to carry their newfound momentum into
Saturday’s game at Master’s College.
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