POCATELLO, Idaho – The Idaho State soccer team fell to the Northwest Nazarene Nighthawks 1-0 Friday afternoon in Holt Arena.
"I thought they came out to work pretty hard today," said Head Coach
Debs Brereton. "I felt as though we knew that Northwest Nazarene was going to provide a lot of aggressiveness and physicality."
The two teams battled hard the first half, ending the period tied scoreless.
"At one point we had eight freshmen on the pitch, they're going to have to learn and get this experience under their belt and it's only going to help them get better so overall effort was there." Said Brereton.
The scoring drought broke 23 minutes into the second half when NNU's Jade Zimmer netted the game winner. The Bengals continued to press but were unable to equalize. The match ended with the Nighthawk 1-0 victory.
"Michaela Wetzel had an unbelievable game and kept everyone at bear very well," said Brereton. "I thought the players in front of her did really well to win any second ball. I think we were better defensively than we were attacking. We need to work on having more composure when we are pressed in the central areas, and we need to work on getting our full backs forwards to support the attack and create numerical advantages. But again, it's a very very young team. We're going to be patient. And this experience is going to help us as we get to conference. Next week is going to be a much better performance in front of goal."
Wetzel had six saves during the game after facing 22 Northwest Nazarene shots.
The Bengals are back in action Friday, Mar. 5 when they travel to Salt Lake City to take on Westminster.
