BOULDER, Colo. - The Cal State Fullerton Titans women's soccer team lost on the road against the No. 17 Colorado Buffaloes 3-2 on Thursday evening at Prentup Field.Â
The Titans fell to 0-1-1 to start the season after playing their first two fixtures on the road.
"I'm really proud of how the team prepared for this match. Coming into this environment and playing this high quality of a team is a challenge and for our group to fight and battle to the end is incredibly encouraging as we look toward the season. We are excited to come home and looking forward to our home on Sunday in Titan Stadium," said Head Coach
Demian Brown.Â
The Titans had the first shot on goal of the game before Colorado scored an early goal in the 9th minute after muscling a Titan defender off the ball for a turnover and Michaela McGowan beating
Allison Craycroft on a drive to the near post.
The Titans immediately responded on the restart after
Cassie Villanueva was brought down inside the box for a penalty. Â After a lengthy challenge call, the first of all four being used, the penalty was confirmed and
Cassie Villanueva stepped in and drilled the penalty to open her Titans goalscoring account.
Shortly after the Titans penalty, they had another possible penalty reviewed after a handball inside the Buffaloes box. However, the ref deemed the hand to be in a natural position and waived off the Titan's challenge. Â
The Buffaloes began peppering
Allison Craycroft's box with shots and she made a couple nice saves to keep the Buffaloes from scoring. Â
In the 28th minute, the Buffaloes were rewarded a free kick on a 50-50 ball that looked like
Camryn Cruz should've drawn the foul. Â However, Colorado scored on the ensuing set piece after a redirected header from Emma Thielbar led to another redirection from Hope Leyba to Rubhy Hayward who scored past the diving Craycroft to give the Buffaloes a 2-1 lead.
Shannon Nettekoven blocked a shot that would've been goal and Craycroft made another save to keep it a 2-1 game heading into halftime.Â
The Buffaloes made it 3-1 in the 53rd minute after Reagan Kotschau volleyed a ball into the upper 90 of Craycroft's goal.  The Titans threw on a host of subs after the goal leading to a spell of play where the Titans were the more aggressive team. Â
Sail Bozinovic had two shots saved and one blocked as they looked to cut the score down. Â The Titans brought on more subs and the freshman eventually combined for a total team goal on a counter attack in the 80th minute. Â After a Colorado freekick attempt on the side of the Titans box,
Riley O'Brien cleared the ball on a header outside the box up to
Mia Ojeda who headed the ball up to
Jaidyn Williams. Â Williams got it to midfield line before she was tackled but
Ionare Ve'e passed the loose ball up ahead to
Mia LaRosa. Â LaRosa raced past the Colorado defenders and rounded the goalkeeper to score her first career goal and make it a one goal game at 3-2.
Over the final ten minutes of play, RS-Freshman goalkeeper
Riley Jolls made her Titan debut. Â The Titans had a couple corner kicks and LaRosa had a deflected shot saved by the goalkeeper as they pressed for the equalizer.Â
The Titans were able to rotate the squad more today than the season opener as
Bella Kellerman,
Kayalily Penn,
Ella Chun, and
Riley Jolls all earned their first career minutes. Â For the game,
Allison Craycroft made five saves. Â The Buffaloes outshot the Titans 22-to-9 however, there was only an 8-to-6 shot on goal advantage.
The Titans will return home on Sunday for their first home game of the season against LMU in a scheduled double-header along with the men's season and home opener. Kick-off is set for 4:00 p.m. for the Titans against LMU.Â
SUPPORT THE TITANS!
Fans can purchase tickets for various Cal State Fullerton athletic events by visitingÂ
FullertonTitansTickets.com. The Athletic Ticket Office can also be contacted by phone at 657-278-2783 or by email atÂ
athletictixs@fullerton.edu.
WATCH THE TITANS ON ESPN+
Titans fans can now watch every home event exclusively on ESPN+. Cal State Fullerton has built a top-tier production studio to give the viewers an ESPN quality production for all games at Titan Stadium. Additionally, all schools in the Big West Conference are committed to producing ESPN quality streams which will allow fans to watch the Titans on ESPN+ for all road conference games.
FOLLOW THE TITANS!
Fans can keep up with the latest in Titan Athletics by following us on Facebook (Facebook/FullertonTitans), Twitter (@FullertonTitans), and Instagram (FullertonTitans). In addition, the women's soccer team has established its own Twitter (@FullertonWSOC) and Instagram accounts (@FullertonWSOC).
