Long Beach State Soccer Blanked By UC Irvine - Gazette Newspapers
After a hot start to Big West Conference play, the No. 22 Long Beach State women's soccer team fell out of first place in the chill of the Irvine night air on Sunday, falling 2-0 to the Anteaters. They were outshot 18-8, with the 'Eaters putting five shots on goal to the 49ers' two.
"Scoring doesn't happen all the time," said Long Beach State head coach Mauricio Ingrassia after the game. "It's streaky-we created opportunities but we didn't do enough with them."
But as Ingrassia acknowledged, a lack of offense wasn't the 49ers' biggest problem. The midfield, normally the strength of the 49ers' roster, was inefficient and did a poor job maintaining possession for the final fifteen minutes of the first half. After controlling play for much of the first half, they stopped making clean passes. Unfortunately for Long Beach fans, the defense was also stepping too high, meaning that Irvine got a lot of one-on-one breakaway chances.
With 49ers goalkeeper Kaitlyn Gustaves looking like a hockey goalie in a shootout on four isolated chances in the first half. Gustaves did about as well as you could ask a goalie to do on those plays, blocking one ball, deflecting another wide. But a 'keeper can only hold back against the tide so often, and finally in the 37th minute, Lexi Kopf put it in for Irvine, after dribbling a defender and then cutting right to juke Gustaves. She tapped it into the goal easily.
In the second half, Long Beach struggled again to get the ball back-and to do anything meaningful with it once they had it. Irvine continued to pressure the 49ers, not satisfied with the one goal lead, and they broke through again in the 71st, when Jenna Pellegrino sent a forward ball to teammate Natalia Ledezma as she ran down the right wing, and Ledezma put enough velocity on it to cross Gustaves up, shooting right to left into the back of the net.
The Long Beach State fans who'd made the trip kept cheering, waiting for the 49er magic they're so accustomed to this year to kick in. But for whatever reason, it just wasn't there.
Frustratingly, it almost was. In the 76th minute Nicole Hubbard got a head on a corner kick, standing in almost the same spot she buried a late-game equalizer against Fullerton earlier this year. The ball came off fast-but right to Irvine keeper Jennifer Randazzo In the 89th minute, Long Beach forward Nadia Link juked three defenders in the box, and came clear for a shot that could have pulled Long Beach to within one-but it, too, was right at Randazzo effectively ending the scoring chances for the visitors.
After the game, Ingrassia said he was less worried about the scoring chances-which do fluctuate in soccer-and more worried about fixing the breakdowns in his midfield and back line.
"It's a tough loss," said Ingrassia. "We need to fix what's going on with our team, in terms of taking better care of the ball."
If there's a piece of good news for Long beach in the disappointing pair of road losses this weekend, to Northridge and Irvine, it's that they can come home and try to fix those issues in the friendly confines of George Allen Field. Their final three games are at home-this Friday against Riverside at 3pm, and then the 28th and the 30th against Davis and Pacific. The fourth-place 49ers are now 3-2-0 in conference, behind UC Irvine, UC Davis, and Northridge. Stay tuned to GazettesSports.com to watch as they try and battle back to the top of the hill.
17 Oct, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNEEOJu5fYyqz1fPcQ1dqnh61HwFkQ&url=http://www.gazettes.com/sports/lbsu/long-beach-state-soccer-blanked-by-uc-irvine/article_6e53b8d4-f880-11e0-b119-001cc4c002e0.html
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