The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

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Matadors still looking for win; fall to 0-3-1

Cal State Northridge visited UCLA’s Drake Stadium over the weekend for the UCLA Women’s Cup and walked away still looking for their first victory of the season. ?

The Matadors played two games in the cup, Friday against University of San Francisco and Sunday against University of Illinois, tying the first game and losing the second. The results dropped them to 0-3-1 on the season. ?

Friday night’s game against USF ended in a 0-0 tie, in a game that screamed defense from start to finish. Both teams had very few opportunities to score in regulation. In fact, there were only a combined seven shots taken by the two teams in the entire 90 minutes.

The overtime periods brought a modest amount of action as senior midfielder Kristy Krohn’s long range shot for the Matadors sailed wide, just barely missing the net. ?USF had its scoring chance in the second overtime when freshman forward Kelsey Shibuya’s shot also went wide, narrowly missing the Matador net.

Sunday’s match up with Illinois brought a lot of offensive action, but the excitement was entirely generated by the opposing team.

The Illini dominated the game from the start en route to a 4-0 victory, scoring three times in the opening half and adding a fourth goal for good measure with just a single second left in the game.

The first goal of the game for the Illini was scored just 1:38 into the game on a free kick that was headed by senior midfielder Kara Gostisha into the net, past Matador freshman goalie Ivette Esqueda.

Illinois freshman forward Laura Knutson followed that up, scoring the second goal at 29:22, and with just 13 seconds left in the first half, freshman forward Christina Sahly put the Illini up 3-0 with a header into the Matador net off a cross from sophomore forward Courtney Bell.

The fourth and final Illini goal was scored on a breakaway shot into an empty net by senior forward Ella Masar.

The Matadors head coach Keith West still remains high on his club, saying he thinks the team has played well through most of the first four games, but consistency seems to be the key for this team.

“We’re playing good soccer, we’re just not playing consistent enough,” West said. “We need to limit our mistakes.”

The teams’ inconsistent play has led West to make a lot of substitutions in an effort to try and find the right mix of players. ?He has played an unusually high number of players in all four games this season, playing 20 against Illinois and 19 against San Francisco over the weekend.

“I’m just trying to find the players in our program that are going to get [the job] done,” said West.

As for those players, their good spirit and confidence seems to have remained, even with a winless record through the first four games said West.

“These losses haven’t taken any spirit away from this team,” he said. ?”We haven’t given up once in these losses. The character on this team is incredible,” said West.

The Matadors play their next two games at home, starting with their match against Baylor on Friday at Matador Soccer Field at 4 p.m. and against UCLA on Sunday at 3 p.m.

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