The Long Beach State soccer ladies returned home to George Allen Field—after four games on the road—to beach UC Davis 1-nil in the team’s conference opener.

It wasn’t the type of performance ‘Niner fans are used to seeing from head coach Mauricio Ingrassia’s squad. A physical team that takes pride in controlling the ball and utilizing their speed along the sidelines, was pressed by the Aggies throughout the early first half. For half an hour the game was more reminiscent of “kick ball” than soccer—with ‘Niner defenders blasting the ball every chance jus to get it out of their side of the field.

One could also say the ‘Niners also won their own version of “wall ball” (for you JJ) with record-owning Long Beach State keeper Liz Ramos in the net. Ramos punched out three Aggies crosses and had three sliding reads on through ball in the secong half to hold her fifth shutout of the season.

Ramos—who is part of the elite group of eight seniors who came in as freshman together—has said that the play of seniors will be pivotal to the teams success heading into conference play and lifting them into the NCAA’s. And on this day it was her fellow classmate forward Sahar Haghdan to give her team a lift—scoring in the 37th minute.

Haghdan—who coach Ingrassia says is the team’s sparkplug—took a Hayley Bolt through ball in the box, shook-off a Davis defender to draw out the Aggies goalkeeper. Poised, Haghdan side-stepped to her right (like Barry Sanders useto elude diving DB’s) and put it into the empty net.

Haghdan immeidately put her hands up in the air in celebration as if saying “finally.” It was Haghdan’s first goal of the season (though she has had a few called back on calls) and more importantly the goal was much needed to open up the game for the ‘Niners.

The fans were also saying “finally” because up to that point the ‘Niners were on their heels, with the Aggies getting a handful of “almosts.” almost got a cross in, almost got a shot off, almost a goal.

But like the defense has shown all year, a shot, let alone a goal is going to be hard to come by for opponents. The ‘Niners lead the Big West with a .72 goal against average and will look to keep shutting down opponents attacks during the rest of this four-game home stand.

Long Beach State hosts Pacific tomorrow at noon. Followed by a non-conference match-up on October 8th against the nationally ranked University of San Diego before facing UC Irvine on October 12th.