PORTLAND, Ore. — The Northern Arizona women's soccer team displayed their physical side against the Portland State Vikings Friday afternoon falling 1-0 in their first game of the road weekend. The Lumberjacks and Vikings went scoreless in the first half until an unfortunate foul in the second half gave the Vikings a penalty kick resulting in the game-winning goal.
"Disappointed in the result today," Head Coach
Andre Luciano said. "I thought we had a very solid week of training and had a fairly good idea of how Portland State was going to play."
Both teams got off to a slow start in the beginning with Portland State outshooting the Lumberjacks five to one, trying to put pressure on early. Despite that the Lumberjacks fought back recording a season-high 12 fouls in the first half. Still scoreless, the Lumberjacks went into the second half.
The lone goal came in the 59th minute when a foul in the box gave Portland State just the chance they needed to top the 'Jacks in a pretty evenly matched game. Despite the score, the Lumberjacks outshot the Vikings with nine attempts to their eight and were aggressive with 15 total fouls to the Vikings 12.
"Defensively, we allowed four shots on goal, one being a PK, but unfortunately we only put two shots on frame," said Luciano, "which in the end you have to be very lucky to win a game that way."
Going into the game, Northern Arizona was coming off of two 1-0 victories over Northern Colorado and North Dakota and Portland State was on a three-game losing streak. The Lumberjacks are now 8-6 overall and 3-2 in the Big Sky. Next up, Northern Arizona will take on Montana Sunday at noon before returning to Flagstaff.
