A 3-0 loss to No. 5 BYU at George Allen Field Thursday ended what has been a tough season-opening schedule for Long Beach State women’s soccer.
“There are little details that we’re still not doing well that we have to clean up to reach our potential as a team,” head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said.
Long Beach (2-7) has played six opponents this season who were either ranked or received votes in national polls. It has lost to all six of those teams.
The Beach, however, have improved in key areas over the past several weeks.
One area Long Beach has improved since the season began is in the midfield. The Beach played aggressively enough to keep the prolific Cougars offense out of dangerous areas for most of the opening portion of the game.
“We knew we had to keep them wide, because they love to cut in [to the middle], so we just stuck to the game-plan,” junior defender Kaitlin Fregulia said.
The Long Beach State offense has struggled to generate scoring chances all year. Creating offense will be much tougher moving forward, as the Beach learned before the game that junior forward Kayla Cannon will likely miss the rest of the season with a knee injury she has been playing through all year, according to Ingrassia.
The Beach did have two corner kicks in the 25th minute against BYU (8-0), which each resulted in shot attempts, but neither of them were on goal.
In the 35th minute, a failed clear attempt in front of the Long Beach goal gave BYU freshman forward/midfielder SaraJayne Affleck a point-blank opportunity, but she shot it directly into Long Beach junior defender Myah Baksh and the ball glanced away.
“It seems like we’ve been losing a lot in the second half lately,” Fregulia said. “We’ve just got to stay disciplined.”
Long Beach held BYU, which averages over 2.5 goals a game, scoreless at halftime, though the Cougars did hold a 2-0 advantage in shots on goal at the break.
Ten minutes into the second half, Affleck sped down the left flank and sent a low cross in front of the net. BYU freshman midfielder Ellie Maughan tapped the ball past redshirt sophomore keeper Ashley Seymore for a 1-0 Cougar lead.
“The first goal kinda broke it open,” Ingrassia said.
The Cougars were able to capitalize again when Long Beach sophomore forward/midfielder Sierra Castles made an ill-advised pass back into the Beach’s own penalty box. BYU senior forward Elise Flake took full advantage of the mistake by winning the race to the ball and tipped it over Seymour into the net.
“[The goal] was just a miscue in the back and that was the game,” Ingrassia said.
Coming into the game, BYU had not allowed a goal in over a month. The only goal it allowed all season came on a penalty shot, proving Long Beach’s 2-0 deficit a tall order to overcome.
BYU senior forward Ella Ballstaedt deflected a hip-height cross from the right side into the net in the 85th minute to add to the score, ending the game 3-0.
Long Beach State opens Big West Conference play at Cal Poly Thursday at 7 p.m.in San Luis Obispo.