BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Sonoma State women's soccer saw their season draw to a close Saturday afternoon as the Seawolves fell 2-0 to defending national champions, Western Washington in the second round of the NCAA Championship Tournament
Despite the loss, head coach Emiria Salzman Dunn expressed her pleasure with how her team progressed and played throughout the season and the NCAA Tournament, following the match.
"This was such an awesome experience and honestly we are very happy with how our season progressed. Western is an amazing team and they deserved the win today. We gave it our all - we came here as a team, and we will leave here as an even stronger team."
Sonoma State was pushed onto the back foot early in the game as the Vikings maintained possession and immediately pushed towards goal.
The first scoring opportunity of the game came in the 10th minute when a dangerous shot from Sophie Butterfield forced Kristen Spear to make a diving save to her left. Spear prevented the goal but the ball rolled away from the her, allowing Gabriela Pelogi to take a second shot on the rebound. However, the Sonoma State keeper got her body in front of the point-blank range shot, blocking it as it rolled out of bounds. Spear would go on to total eight saves in the match, many of them spectacular, to keep the game within reach.
Western Washington finally broke through on their 11th shot of the game, when Grace Eversaul belted a low liner from the top of the box that, through traffic, found daylight as well as the back of the net. The Vikings took their 1-0 the lead to the break, before they doubled their margin in the second half.
The Seawolves entered the second half, limited to two shots and looking for any opportunity to equalize but proved stymied by their opponent. Twenty minutes into the period, Western Washington found goal again, as a blistering shot by Karli White looped in the near post from 18 yards out. Spear was able to get a touch on the ball but it was not enough to redirect the shot out of harm's way.
The Vikings defense repeated their first half performance in the final 45 minutes, limiting the Seawolves to a pair of shots and preventing a single corner kick en route to the shutout.
With the loss, the Seawolves finish a gutsy and hard-fought 2017 season at 15-5-1, while they look forward to 2018.
"A month or so ago we couldn't have known how strong we would come on toward the end of this season," noted Salzmann Dunn. "Honestly these past two weeks have been some of the greatest of my coaching life. I love this team and am only sad I don't get to coach them one more day."
