POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State fell at home to CSU Fullerton 4-2 on Friday afternoon after a hard-fought match at Davis Field. The Bengals now sit at 0-3-0 heading into their fourth contest of the season.
Idaho State battled for the first 45 minutes of the game and matched CSU Fullerton (3-0-0) in energy and effort. However, one unfortunate handball and another short defensive letdown led to two goals for the Titans in the first half.
The first goal came off a penalty kick in the 21st minute that was a result of an ISU handball in the penalty box. CSU Fullerton's Rebecca Wilson took the penalty and snuck it past ISU goalkeeper
Sheridan Hapsic for her third goal of the season. The Titans second goal came from a quick cross and finish by Alba Barrios with less than two minutes left in the half. Head Coach
Allison Gibson refers to that time of the beginning and end of a half as the Big Five, and she says it's some of the most important periods of the entire game.
"The consistent problem that we're having is managing the games and managing the goals," Gibson said. "The Big Five is the five minutes at the end and beginning of a half, as well as the five minutes following a goal. We've just been bit so many times giving up goals during those times."
ISU was able to capitalize on the Big Five at the start of the second half as they scored their first goal of the match in the 49th minute, less than five minutes after half. Sophomore forward
Sami Rodriquez knocked the ball into the back right side of the goal off a great cross from freshman midfielder
Cassidy Kaumeyer to bring the Bengals within a goal. However, Idaho State was not able to effectively manage the next Big Five, as Titan forward Ivy Diego broke free and scored off the cross from Sarah Fajnor less than a minute later.
"Coming out of the locker room, I told the team 'We're going to score in the first 10 minutes'," Gibson said. "We changed a couple of things to get players forward to try to get a goal in those first 10 minutes and not give something else up. We got that goal, and then it was less than 50 seconds later we gave up another goal. Again it's managing the game."
Idaho State was able to cut the Titans' lead to one once again after senior defender
Vanessa Cabilan fired from ten feet out on the left side and buried her first goal of the season off the cross from sophomore
Maria Sanchez. The two squads played back-and-forth for the next 12 minutes until Fajnor scored the fourth and final goal for the Titans in the 74th minute.
Despite the loss, Gibson saw several areas of improvement from the Bengals, most notably the emergence of additional scorers.
"It was huge to see other players step up to score goals today," Gibson said. "It's what we've talked about all week is that we've got to have other players step up and have more of an impact. We had maybe eight to 10 different players get shots off today, which is huge."
The Bengals are back on the road this Sunday as they travel to challenge Westminster at 2:30 p.m. in Salt Lake City.
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