Alva, Okla.– Northwestern Oklahoma State University Rangers drop a heartbreaking game to Southwestern Tuesday evening 3-2 ending their two-game win streak.
Southwestern started the game fast gaining early control of the ball. After having possession for a little while the Bulldogs capitalized with the early scoring chance. They would take the lead 1-0 during the 9th minute of the game.
Northwestern would gain some control of the ball and have a few scoring chances. However could not capitalize on them. Southwestern used this to start their own strong attack by extending their lead to 2-0 at the 17:44 mark.
"We have to be better. Have to be ready to play at the beginning of matches against a good, well prepared team like Southwestern." Head Coach Erik Solberg stated. There really is no excuse for it to give up two goals in the first 18 minutes. We can't expect to win games when we do that. Thought we played really well in response to that adversity to bring a goal back before half after giving up a fluke goal brought it back again and gave ourselves a chance to equalize the game."
The Rangers would never give up though. After neither team could really gain control of the game each team would be trading possessions back and forth. Northwestern would eventually gain control of possession as Yazmin Gomez capitalized by netting the first goal of the game for Northwestern making it a 2-1 game.
First half would close out with Southwestern leading 2-1.
The second half was extremely close with both teams going back and forth possession wise. Neither team could find a way to control the game. In the 60th minute Southwestern was able to extend their lead to 3-1.
The hard fighting Rangers would not get down though as they continued to battle back and forth with Southwestern. Yazmin Gomez would capitalize on another scoring opportunity. Gomez would net her second goal of the game bringing the Rangers within one with 3-2 score.
"This team works incredibly hard, this team is never out of any game. I was really proud of the resilience shown. Got two goals down to bring it back to one goal on two separate occasions and ultimately had chances to even the match. There is no quiet in this team, some adjustments we did late, but at the same time this group is resilient and work incredibly hard, so I never have to worry about them being down. We responded in a positive way after being kicked down. Bottom line we got to start better but I never worried about how we would respond.
Rangers would have one last scoring opportunity to try and even the game but could not capitalize on it as Southwestern would prevail NWOSU's attack in the final 10 seconds and hold on for a 3-2 victory.
The Rangers would fall to 5-7-1 overall and 2-4-1 in conference play. Northwestern will take on GAC opponent East Central University on Thursday evening October 24th at 6 p.m.
