WHITTIER, Calif. – The University of Redlands Women's Soccer team ended their regular season with a 4-0 loss at Whittier College Friday night.
The Bulldogs were already locked into the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Postseason Tournament regardless of the result as second-place Cal Lutheran University holds the head-to-head advantage. Fourth-place Whittier could not catch up with one game remaining and fifth-place Claremont-Mudd-Scripts could jump to the third seed with a win or fourth with a draw in their game tomorrow, but the Bulldogs would still be ahead of Whittier for the fourth seed.
From the very start of the game the Bulldogs were under pressure with Courtney Stewart (San Jose, CA) being forced into a save in the opening three minutes. Less than two minutes later, in the fifth, the Poets would take the lead.
Stewart made a second save in the ninth minute before Whittier would make it 2-0 :32 seconds later.
Redlands had to stay on their toes as Ciara Aw (Shoreline, WA) made a big defensive save in the 12th minute to keep the Bulldogs alive.
In the 14th minute the Bulldogs started to settle down as Sami Salinas (Foothill Ranch, CA) put the teams first shot of the game on target.
Stewart would be replaced by her sister Shannon Stewart (San Jose, CA), but before that she would make three more saves. S. Stewart came on in the 28th minute, and :22 seconds later she was forced into a save attempt. It was then a 3-0 deficit with another Poet goal, this time coming in the 35th.
In the 39th and 42nd minutes, the Bulldogs were able to put shots on target courtesy of Celine Akroush (Pasadena, CA) and Natalie Turiace (San Dimas, CA), but both shots were handled by the Poet keeper as they trailed 3-0 at the half.
In the opening five minutes of the second period the Bulldogs had four of the first five shot attempts with one of them forcing the Poet keeper into action.
Whittier took control of the run of play in the middle of the half as the Bulldogs staved off three Poet scoring opportunities thanks to saves from S. Stewart and a defensive save from Anika Schmied (Santa Cruz, CA). Despite the defensive effort, the Poets would tack on insurance in the 64th.
In the final twenty six minutes of the game, the two teams combined for 19 shots with 10 saves, but no goals for the Bulldogs.
There were 47 total shots in the game with 31 coming from Whittier as the Bulldogs combined to make 19 saves. Stewart had 11 saves on 13 shots on-goal faced. Turiace took four shots and put two of them on-target.
The Bulldogs will wait until the conclusion of Saturday's games to see if they will travel to No. 1 Pomona-Pitzer or No. 2 Cal Lutheran in the SCIAC Semifinals.