Women's soccer roll past Pacific 2-1

By Darrell Copeland

The Fresno State women’s soccer team is hitting on all cylinders after a 2-1 victory over Pacific.

The Bulldogs (3-3-1) defeated the Tigers (4-2-2) by scoring both of their goals in the second half of the game on a header by junior Koleen Anderson and a shot from junior Kortney Lewis in the 83rd minute.

The first half belonged to Pacific. Everything from stamina to ball control went the way of the Tigers.
“In the first half, we weren’t doing anything right,” Anderson said.

That includes when Pacific connected on its first and only goal of the night, a header by freshman Mandi Van Dorn from teammate Sadye Reish.

The Tigers received high praise from their head coach Keith Coleman. When Reish was subbed out in the first half, she was welcomed to the bench by Coleman with, “That might be the goal of the century.”
When teammate Van Dorn made her way to the bench by way of substitution, she received “That was like World Cup and stuff” praise from Coleman.

No matter how much Coleman liked the goal, he couldn’t stop the Bulldogs from coming out for the second half with noticeably higher energy and a more efficient attack than his Tigers.

Fresno State head coach Steve Springthorpe gave the Bulldogs a simple but effective speech in the locker room.

“Basically, the halftime speech was this: We need to play harder, we need to play smarter and we need to play to our capabilities,” Springthorpe said.

Even with such a young team, including 10 freshmen, the Bulldogs responded in the second half, nearly tripling their shot attempts with four in the first half and 11 in the second half.

With those fifteen shots, Fresno State was able to put six of them on goal, while Pacific was only able to shoot seven times, making it on goal five.

The second half Bulldogs team is something that Anderson thinks Fresno State can keep up as long as it does what it is supposed to on the field.

“Everyone give 100 percent, have composure, win all the 50-50 balls and just play as a team,” Anderson said. “If we do that, no one can stop us.”

With the win, the Bulldogs have now gone undefeated in the past four games, winning three in a row. That will be much needed momentum going into Friday’s game at nationally ranked California.

“We’re on a roll and we’re moving in a great direction,” Springthorpe said.

Keeping that momentum against a strong California team will be a tough task nobody except the Bulldogs themselves expects to do.

“For us, it’s a no-lose,” Springthorpe said. “I don’t think anybody’s gonna expect us to win—except ourselves.”