LA JOLLA, Calif. – First place Long Beach State scored three goals in the first 13 minutes of the match and Lena Silano registered a hat trick on the way to a 6-1 victory over UC San Diego at Triton Soccer Stadium on Thursday night.
The Tritons fell to 2-9-5 overall and 1-3-3 in Big West action. The Beach is now 5-4-5 overall on the season, remaining unbeaten at 4-0-2 in Big West play.
HOW IT HAPPENED
UC San Diego had the first chance of the match early on.
Kennedy Carter raced down the right flank in the third minute, serving a perfect cross into the box.
Courtney Hilliard met the pass and redirected it with a header that floated just off target. On the other end, Long Beach State wasted little time breaking through, getting an unassisted score from Sara Ybarra in the fifth minute to go up one-nil.
The Beach added a second score in the eighth minute when Sophie Jones scored on a rebound to give her team a two-goal advantage. In the 13th minute, Long Beach State extended its advantage when Lena Silano scored her Big West-leading tenth goal of the season thanks to a feed from Cherrie Cox.
In the 18th minute, Hilliard dribbled into the box and fed
Natalie Abel thanks in part to a deflection by Long Beach. The Triton sophomore ripped her team-leading fourth goal of the season to put UC San Diego on the board.
Silano added her second score of the night in the 23rd minute, giving The Beach a 4-1 lead at the midway point of the period.
Triton goalkeeper
Keara Fitzgerald made five first half saves. Long Beach State held a 15-4 advantage in shots over the first 45 minutes. The Tritons held a slim 4-3 edge in corner kicks.
In the second half, Long Beach State had back-to-back shots in the 59th minute but Triton center back
Katelyn Meyer saved the first and blocked the second.
On the other end, UC San Diego fired nine shots on goal after halftime, but Long Beach State keeper Zora Standifer stopped each one.
Silano added two more goals for The Beach, with tallies coming in the 74th and 77th minutes.
QUOTABLE
"They're a good team and it was a combination of them having a good start and organizationally we were all over the place [in the first half] and weren't tight to the players we needed to be tight to and we didn't implement our game plan at all in that first half," said UC San Diego head coach
Kristin Jones '04. "In the second half we played well for about 30 minutes and had some really good opportunities. I'm proud of the shift in mentality coming out of halftime."
TRITON TIDBITS
- With four shots on Thursday, sophomore Courtney Hilliard ranks second on the Tritons with 15 shots on the season.
- The six goals surrendered by the Tritons matched the most in program history, most recently allowed in 1983 at UC Santa Barbara. Six goals also equals a Long Beach program single game record.
- Midfielder Camryn Borg returned to the starting lineup for the first time since Sept. 25 at Cal State Fullerton. Thursday was her 12th start in her 14 matches played.
- Game time temperature was 65 degrees with damp field conditions thanks to coastal drizzle for much of the day in La Jolla.
UP NEXT
The Tritons return to the pitch next Thursday as they visit CSU Bakersfield for a 7 p.m. contest. The match will be broadcast on ESPN+ with live stats on UCSDTritons.com.
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program began a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.
