After a long 5 hour drive, the UCSD Women’s Club Team arrived at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo to take part in NIRSA’s Southwest Regionals Tournament. After their last two wins against SDSU and CSU Fullerton the weeks prior, the Tritons were ready to face the competition at hand. The 

first game of the tournament for our ladies was against Cal Poly SLO’s Women’s Club Soccer Team. The opponent came out strong from the opening gates, but our defensive unit of Michaela Goodman, Naomi Araujo, Erika Braun, and Marli Bannai put up a strong performance against Cal Poly’s front line. When with possession, the girls were able to keep possession and composure and were able to dominate on the left side of the field when Suhana Singh and Mia Fava were building and playing off of each other. Unfortunately, Cal Poly capitalized on a defensive error and scored at the end of the first half making it 1-0 entering half time. The girls came out with high intensity starting the second half. The Mustangs sadly went down to 10 players after one of our girls getting a double yellow red card in the 2nd half. After a hard fought second half, the Tritons fell short of a win, with an ending result of 1-0 to Cal Poly. 

On Day 2 of Regionals, the team took on University of Arizona on Saturday morning with some dry wind conditions. The game started off very frantic since UofA came out with a high press defensive tactic. Sadly, The Tritons conceded two goals after two defensive errors in the first half. Entering the 2nd half chasing a 2-0 UofA lead, the Tritons were determined to stay in the game. Possession in the second half was evenly distributed from team to team, but our Tritons were seen breaking lines and creating plays. Suhana Singh scored the Tritons’ first goal of the game after beating the opponent’s outside back, finishing with a killer near post shot. Moments after, Erika Braun sped past UofA’s outside back and put in a beautiful cross into the box, which was nicely finished by Adelka Hancova, tying the game 2-2.  Unfortunately, the Tritons got unlucky when a penalty kick was called on their center back in the last 3 minutes of the game, resulting in a 3-2 loss. The girls unfortunately did not advance to the next round of the tournament. UCSD has their last game of fall season next Saturday, November 5th against UCLA at 2pm on Warren Field.