Glendora, CA (Women’s Soccer) – Coming into this afternoon’s game, the Citrus College women’s soccer team, hadn’t yet played a truly close game. They had out-scored their opponents 16-3 through their first four games, to jump out to their first ever 4-0 start. The Lady Owls finally got a scare put into them by LA Harbor on Sunday afternoon, but a last second goal saved their undefeated record as they went on to win 2-1.
The Lady Owls started off flat, and LA Harbor took advantage of that early by forcing Citrus to focus more on their defense then their offense. The Seahawks were first to get on board as Harbor’s Marisol Rodriguez scored in the 26th minute to give Harbor a 1-0 lead.
Citrus would continue to struggle through the first half, but were finally able to answer Harbor’s call in the 39th minute when Trisha Eyer scored off a Bahar Khoshkbaryeh assist, to tie the game up at one a piece.
After halftime the Lady Owls began to step up their game, and began to put more pressure on the Seahawk’s defense. Citrus out-shot LA Habor 13-2 in the 2nd half, and created many more scoring opportunities for themselves than they did in the 1st period.
Despite the numerous shots taken at the Seahawks goal, LA Harbor goalie Yvonne Velasquez, proved to extremely resilient recording six saves in the second half on many tough Citrus shots. In the final 15 minutes of the contest, the Lady Owls took seven shots, but none of them were able to find the back of the net.
With 90 minutes on the clock, the referee added two minutes of stoppage time to the game. With only two minutes to play, Bahar Khoshkbaryeh threw in the ball to Kelli Johnston who had a one on one situation. Johnston faked left and moved right leaving only the goalie in between her and a game winning goal. Johnston promptly kicked the ball into the left hand side of the goal, past the Harbor goal keeper to record the game winner in stoppage time.
With the win the Lady Owls improve to 5-0 on the young season. Citrus will be back at home on Tuesday September 11, to kick off their Western State Conference schedule with a match against Allan Hancock. This will be the second meeting of the year between these two squads as the Lady Owls defeated Hancock 5-0 at the Oxnard Tournament earlier in the season. Game time is set for 4:00 PM.
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