San Diego State opened the 2016 season with a 5-0 home loss to UCLA on Friday night in front of 2,079 fans at SDSU Sports Deck. The defeat drops the Aztecs to 0-1 on the year, while the Bruins move to 1-0.

 

“We’re disappointed with the result in terms of the score line, but we were pretty happy with what we saw in some of the moments of the game,” head coach Mike Friesen said. “I thought we started well and I thought our second half was very good. We had a seven-minute period in the first half where we gave up three goals. I didn’t like how we responded to the first goal, but UCLA is a quality team with a lot of great players. They scored a couple of world-class goals, including the last goal, which was an unbelievable individual effort.

 

“I’m proud of our team and its resiliency to come back and be down three goals and fight to get better in the second half,” Friesen added. “We played a lot of players and it was good to get them a lot minutes. Now we have a 10-day break in terms of games and it’s great with a young team to go 10 days to figure out where we’re lacking and get better. We’re still excited about the prospects of this team and it was fun to play in front of more than 2,000 people.”

 

SDSU, which started three freshmen, allowed the first of three goals to Darian Jenkins in the 31^st minute and could never gain any momentum. The senior then added another in the 35^th minute before punching in an unassisted goal in the 39^th minute. Jenkins’ first two goals were assisted by Anika Rodriguez and Zoey Goralski, respectively.

 

After halftime, UCLA received a goal off a header from Julia Hernandez, which was assisted by Gabrielle Matulich, and Amber Munerlyn finished off the scoring with a goal in the 76^th minute.

 

As for the Aztecs, their three starting freshmen played heavy minutes in their debut. Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Gabby English made a game-high seven saves, while defender Bailey Cook logged 90 minutes. Rachel Speros, a midfielder, meanwhile, was on the field for 87 minutes.

 

San Diego State was led by its senior midfielder in Victoria Barba, who attempted half of the Aztecs eight shots. Milan Moses, Hedda Regefalk, Aliyah Utush and Dani DeRosa each took one shot with Utush and DeRosa’s strikes coming on net.

 

In addition to the three freshman starters, SDSU had five other Aztecs step onto the Sports Deck pitch for the first time in junior transfer Nicole Robertson (28 minutes), and true freshmen Eden Kawabe (45 minutes), Yasmin Ahooja (25 minutes), Darcy Weiser (13 minutes) and Meghan Scudero (6 minutes).

 

As for the team totals, UCLA outshot San Diego State, 21-8, and enjoyed an advantage in shots on goal (12-2) and corner kicks (4-2).

 

SDSU returns to action on Monday, Aug. 29, when it travels to Long Beach State. First tap is scheduled for 7 p.m. PT.