The women’s soccer team has won two of their last three games against West Coast Conference teams versus the University of Portland and St Mary’s. They hoped to continue on that streak when they traveled to Santa Clara on Oct 27.
Unfortunately, the Santa Clara Bronco’s defense was nearly impenetrable. Santa Clara held the Dons to their second lowest amount of shots on goal, five. Sophomore forward Izzy Lueken and senior midfielder Maddy Glaser held the Dons’ two shots on target.
Sophomore goalkeeper Olivia Camera and the rest of the USF defensive line kept the conference’s leading offense to seven shots on goal. Camera halted a threatening one-on-one chance for the Broncos. This save was one of Camera’s five saves on the night. These saves put Camera tied for eighth most in the nation with 112 saves on the year.
The Bronco’s goals came in the 26th and 58th minute, both by freshman forward Kelsey Turnbow. Turnbow’s first goal came off an assist from Maddy Gonzalez in the corner of the box, and struck it past Camera at the far post. Gonzalez scored her 11th of the season off a cross from Gudron Arnardotti which gave Gonzalez an open shot on goal.
“In the second half, we came out a lot better and had some good chances, but that final touch or final pass to create a scoring opportunity just wasn’t good enough. We’ve got to be sharper in the final third,” Tim Millinder said in an interview with USF Athletics.
The women’s team will come back to the City for their final weekend of the 2017 season, hoping to clean up their play in the attacking third. The Dons will face BYU tonight at Negoesco Field at 7 p.m. in a makeup game that was postponed earlier in the season due to wildfires in North Bay. BYU is currently ranked 4th in the conference.
This will be the first time that these two squads squared off this season. However, when they played last year, BYU was ranked 3rd in the nation, and the Dons could not handle that, losing 0-4.
Featured Photo: Micia Madison (15), Sonja Giraud (27) and Cassidy Kaumeyer (28) post game donsathletics Flickr
