The UC Irvine Women’s Soccer team (1-2-3, 4-6-4) finished at a 0-0 tie against the UC San Diego Tritons (2-2-2, 3-7-4) at Anteater Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 12. Coming into the game, the Anteaters were last in the Big West Conference while the Tritons were sixth.
UCI still had something to celebrate. Prior to the match, Irvine sophomore midfielder/forward Jenika Davis was announced as one of the two CalHOPE Courage Award winners for September after a diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia last season. Following a blood stem cell transplant, she has been able to return. In honor of Davis winning the award, the Women’s Soccer team wore purple warm-up jerseys and accessories to represent Davis’ favorite color.
In the first half, UCI took nine shots and made one save compared to UCSD’s two shots and four saves.
UCI set the tone by playing aggressively early on as junior midfield/forward Tati Fung took the first shots of the game, combining for two shots in the fourth minute of play, followed by three shots taken by sophomore forward Emilie Castagna, one just slightly missing the post.
An Irvine ball that hit the crossbar 33 minutes into the match, shot by redshirt junior forward Alyssa Moore, was one of the closest moments to a score in the game.
In the second half of the game, the Anteaters took two shots. One was taken by Moore, which was saved by UCSD senior goalkeeper Keara Fitzgerald, while the other was taken by UC Irvine redshirt senior forward Erin Covey. Meanwhile, the Tritons took four shots.
By the end of the night, UCSD graduate student defender/forward Katelyn Meyer received the only yellow card of the match and UCI junior forward Laila El Behery was the seventh Anteater to hit 50 career matches in 2023.
The Anteaters couldn’t defeat the Tritons, something the UCI Women’s Soccer program has been unable to do since UC San Diego entered the NCAA Division 1.
Following the match, both the ‘Eaters and Tritons picked up one point in the Big West Conference standings. The Anteaters are currently ninth in the conference, two points behind sixth, which is the final spot allocated for the conference tournament.
The Anteaters went on to defeat UC Riverside 2-0 on Sunday, October 15 and will travel to face Cal State Bakersfield on Thursday, October 19 at 7pm.
Jack Fedor is a Sports Intern for the fall 2023 quarter. He can be reached at jfedor@uci.edu.
