The University of Redlands women's soccer team welcomed the Pomona-Pitzer Colleges Sagehens to Farquhar Field for a Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) contest on Saturday night. Despite out-shooting the Sagehens, 16-12, the home team gave up an early goal and struggled to find the back of the net in a hard-fought showdown.
Senior goalkeeper Hannah Menk (Pleasanton, CA) was tested early in the frame, making a stop in just the 27th second. Three minutes later, Redlands got its offense going when junior midfielder Hayley Romo (Port Orchard, WA) headed a shot but it went wide. This was quickly followed by a quality look from junior midfielder Rachel Tungol (San Ramon, CA) that went just high.
In the ninth minute, Pomona-Pitzer put one through the posts, forcing Redlands to play catch-up early on in the stanza. Following the goal, Menk made four more quality stops through the first half to keep the Bulldogs within striking distance.
Although the Sagehens had the first shot of the second stanza, Redlands countered and fired off five-consecutive shots, with the last one by junior defender Louisa Alstot (Portland, OR) forcing the Sagehen keeper to make a diving save. Redlands continued to apply its offensive pressure by sending two more shots with junior forward Adi Fellows' (Albuquerque, NM) shot going on target.
With time winding down, Romo blasted another excellent shot but it was blocked by a Sagehen defender.
Menk came up with another nice save at the 89:05-mark and booted it to the other end of the field for a last-ditch effort. The Bulldogs linked passes and tried to find an opening to get a shot off, but the final buzzer sounded before Redlands had another opportunity.
Redlands (5-2, 2-2 SCIAC) heads to Orange for its next SCIAC match-up on Wednesday, September 23, against Chapman University at 7 p.m.
