Women's Soccer shows improved play in conference opener

The first-year program held their own for a bit longer in game two than they did in game one in the team's history, showing good progress less than a week into their first season.

Cal Maritime (0-2-0) trailed just 2-0 at the half, and had visibly frustrated the Soka Lions at times in the first frame. The Lady Keelhaulers ability to recover defensively, led by senior Monick Powers, kept the Lions off the board for the first 18 minutes of the contest.

Vanessa Pena again made some dazzling saves in goal on a 14-save night, keeping Cal Maritime in the game, and again Jackie Garcia showed an ability to dribble through traffic that led to opportunities for the Keelhaulers to extend their offense into the Lions end of the field. Emily Silva recorded her second shot of the season, as the 6'1" forward was again able to shield off defenders and be a target for Garcia downfield.

While some positive themes repeated -- and even improved -- for the Cal Maritime women, so did some of the growing pains that will come with a first-year program. The experience and depth of Soka university lead to a heavy volume of shots and domination of time of possession for the Lions, as they scored four of their six goals in the second half.

The Lady Keelhaulers saw the debuts of former Women's Basketball player at Cal Maritime, Erika Duarte, and Women's Water Polo player Dru Daley, increasing the number of options for Head Coach, Emily Scheese. The former UC Santa Cruz Head Coach knows the incremental steps it takes for a first year program.

We are still growing obviously, but happy to have cut the last game's deficit in half," Scheese said. "There were lots of defensive improvements that made this possible in a short period of time which we are happy to have achieved, but obviously a lot more growth is possible and we are still looking for our first goal. The new college game can bring on a lot of injuries we will be dealing with in out next game. We hope to learn from it."

UP NEXT: The Lady Keelhaulers will host their second Cal Pac Conference game in the Women's Soccer Program's history, as the La Sierra University Golden Eagles come to town Sunday, September 23 for an 11 a.m. kick off.