Spartans blank the Horns
An early deficit for the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns women’s soccer team ultimately proved costly.
The Horns were blanked 2-0 by the Trinity Western University Spartans during Canada West action Sunday afternoon at the University of Lethbridge Stadium.
Looking to build off the momentum of their home-opening 5-0 over the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades Saturday, the Pronghorns found themselves down a pair of goals by the 20-minute mark and it was a hole they couldn’t climb out of as TWU hit the road with the win that drops Lethbridge to 1-2-1.
“The honest truth is Trinity deserved this win today,” said Pronghorns head coach Fred Trinh. “They played well. They had constant pressure in the first half and they capitalized.”
The Spartans’ Danae Derksen scored her first goal of the season early on and Jenaya Robertson doubled the Spartan’s lead in the 20th minute, putting the Spartans in control of the game.
Pronghorn Kayla Blacquiere had a pair of chances late in the first half — including a shot that sailed high and hit the uprights — but the hosts were unable to get on the scoresheet.
“To be fair to our girls, we gave up two preventable goals in terms of just simple stuff that we know we can be better at. We made those adjustments at halftime and the girls did well,” said Trinh. “If we can take anything away from it, it was a good learning (experience) that we can’t go out and run-and-gun all the time.
“We had some injuries coming in, but that's not an excuse for us. The people that played and went in, there are lot of positives out of it. I know the score, but you have to ignore the score sometimes and look at individual performances and team performance and evaluate from there.”
Pronghorns goaltender Micaela Stone made three saves Sunday afternoon.
“I thought we could have played more cohesively as a unit,” said Pronghorns fourth-year defender Erica Augsten. “We gave them a little more space than we could have. But it wasn’t a bad result. We played two good teams this weekend and had a good weekend.”
On Sunday, the same Cascades team the Pronghorns beat the day before headed up to Calgary and blanked the Dinos 1-0.
“I think it should give us a good confidence boost,” said Augsten. “If we can beat a team whose decent 50 I don’t think there's anybody in our league we can’t match up well against. We need to take that forward.”
The Pronghorns head back out onto the road this weekend, heading to Saskatchewan to face the University of Saskatchewan Huskies and the University of Regina Cougars on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.
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