A torero is a bullfighter who lures bulls to attack with a red cape, before countering with a stake, striking the bull until it goes down. Yesterday afternoon the Long Beach State women’s soccer team faced off against the University of San Diego—nicknamed the Toreros.  San Diego’s soccer squad embraces their mascot’s style with a contain defense poised to counterattack in the blink of an eye. Yesterday it only took one stake to bring down the ‘Niners—a goal in the 32^nd minute by Jen Mello.

It is Long Beach’s forth loss of the season—all 1-nil difficult defeats. But to credit the ‘Niners, they never go down without a fight.  “At the beginning we were a little shaky,” said senior midfielder Mariko Strickland. “But we got it together and second half we felt like we were pushing—we went down swinging for sure.”

Like Strickland said the ‘Niners looked vulnerable in the first half, where they were outshot 10-3, were out-possessed and gave up the eventual game winner. They turned it around in the second half nearly reciprocating the shot count 8-3 in their favor. Strickland herself saw two shots sail over the crossbar in the second half and connected with Dana Farquhar on a long cross for another scoring opportunity that couldn’t find the net.  Sophomore bully—excuse me—defensive midfielder, Lindsey Bullock, also had two scoring opportunities in the match, both off headers. The first came on a controversial play in the 25^th minute where her header hit the crossbar and rocketed down, nipping the goal line, and bouncing back into play. Futbol, unlike football, requires the entire ball to cross the plane rather than just a portion of the ball.

Head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said that the call was vital to the outcome, since going up one-zero at that point could have changed the direction of the game. Seven minutes later Mello, a senior, put the jukies on two Long Beach defenders before skipping the ball past a diving Liz Ramos.

The Niners were without their playmaker up front Sahar Haghdan, who is out for at least ten days with a hip flexor according to coach Ingrassia. Her absence along with senior Kim Silos playing through a leg injury and an offensive drought from sophomore Kristen Kiefer seemed to have slowed down the Long Beach State attack and ability to create with the ball. Haghdan’s wizardry with the ball will be surely be missed.   But like we stated early in the season the bench is deep and coach Ingrassia went deep yesterday with sophomore twins Grace and Caroline Shevlin. The twins traded in redshirt seasons to play in the game, and showed their versatility playing up front rather than the back wings like they did last season. Coach Ingrassia said that the twins will see valuable minutes from now on.

“We’re gonna get some rest,” said Strickland, as the team has two full days off between before preparing for their next match, “And I think it will definitely fire us up for the next match up”

Long Beach State (8-4-2 overall and 2-0 in league play) next plays Sunday at 2 p.m. against their Big West rival UC Irvine. Irvine is currently 7-6 (1-1) on the season and will be the ‘Niners’ second to last home match of the year. In case you were wondering, their mascot is the Anteaters.