The UW-Eau Claire women’s soccer team took a loss in the first game of the season against Augsburg on Friday, Aug. 30 at Bollinger Fields.

The Blugolds started the game mostly on defense. Nine total shots were made on the Eau Claire goal by Augsberg in the first half, with one being successful.

Augsburg player Ashley St. Aubin received an assist from Gabriela Encarnación at the 8:56 mark.

“This is a team that beat us 3-0 last year,” Head Coach Sean Yengo said. “They were picked to win their conference. Their lights out up top are two really good goal scorers and they gave us a lot of trouble, especially in the first half.”

The Blugolds made five shots in the first half, three of which occurred in the last five minutes of the first half.

“I thought we were going to score one at the end of the first half,” Yengo said. “And I thought we were going to score one at the beginning of the second half. We were really really close in both of those areas.”

Going into the second half, the Blugolds managed a shot at the Augsburg goal just before Augsburg returned play with a goal by midfielder Ana Ortiz at the 47:59 mark.

Augsburg made four additional shots in the second half. The Blugolds made four attempts for goal but were not successful. Anna Sveiven, a third-year goalkeeper got her hands on the ball twice in the second half and had eight total saves.

“We knew that they were a possessive team going towards the outside,” Sveiven said, “so we focused more on outside defense coming up to attack their outside defense.”

The final score of the game ended up as 0-2 in Augsburg’s favor.

“It was an erratic first half, we were unsettled,” Yengo said. “Some of that was Augsburg and some of that was us on ourselves and I think we definitely settled that down in the second half. I thought we were much more composed.”

Emily Sulllivan, a fourth-year midfielder, said the team had good ball possession during the game, but other skills needed some work.

“Obviously we’ll continue working on that possession piece of it,” Emily Sullivan, a fourth-year midfielder said. “But we need to work more on our attacking third, getting that final ball in, getting those crosses in and being able to score on those, so that’s going to be our last piece.”

The Blugolds will host St. Norbert College at 2 p.m. on Sept. 7 at Bollinger Fields. Yengo stated last year’s game against St. Norbert’s ended positively in a 5-0 lead.

“I think we need to take this loss — cause it sucks — and take that anger, take that pissed-off-ness, put it into practice and get a win,” Sveiven said. “We need a win. It’s so much better to win and we are a great team. We pass together, we all like each other, we move well and it just needs to show on the field that we work well together.”

Spierings can be reached at [email protected].