St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus women’s soccer team opened its 2013 season with a 3-0 loss to UW-Eau Claire on Friday afternoon at the Gustie Soccer Field. After holding the Blugolds scoreless in the first half, the Gusties could not keep UW-Eau Claire off the scoreboard in the second 45 minutes, giving up three goals in a 10 minute span to suffer the 3-0 loss. Gustavus begins the season 0-1-0 while UW-Eau Claire kicks off the year 1-0-0.
“To start the game I think we had to get some nerves out of the way,” mentioned head coach Laura Burnett-Kurie following the loss. “Once we worked through that, we started to build some momentum going into the end of the half. We started to get some shots on net and forced their keeper to come up with a big save, which was a positive sign.”
Following a scoreless first half that saw the Blugolds out to a slight advantage in shots (9-5), UW-Eau Claire came back to score three goals in the second half, the first of which came in the 74th minute. Paige LeGate sent a cross in front of the net that found the foot of Teighlor Tvedt, who put the ball away to give the Blugolds the 1-0 lead.
“Their first goal went against the momentum that we had started to build, so it was tough to recover after that,” stated Burnett-Kurie of the first Blugold goal.
Moments later, Caroline Henderson took a pass over the top of the Gustie defense at midfield and raced to the top of the box where she ripped a shot past the outstretched arms of Gustavus goalkeeper Caroline Olson (Jr., York, Pa.) to put the Blugolds on top 2-0.
UW-Eau Claire’s third goal came on a corner kick in the 84th minute. Tara Dennehy sent the corner into the box where it found the head of Kara Ryan at the back post. Ryan put it away to give the Blugolds a comfortable 3-0 lead.
From there the two teams played to a draw for the remaining six minutes and change, as UW-Eau Claire walked away with the victory.
The Gusties will next host UW-Stout on Monday, Sept. 1st in St. Peter. That match is set for a 12:00 p.m. kick off.