UC Irvine Women’s Soccer dropped its first exhibition match to the Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Lions, 3-2, on Aug. 4 at Anteater Stadium.
With a determination to control the ball from both sides, LMU was able to strike first within the first half of the match when freshman midfielder Elise Bolanos scored, making it 1-0.
Heading toward the end of the first half, in the 31st minute, LMU added more pressure to UCI’s defense when LMU graduate forward Kylie Dobbs fired a goal past UCI’s defense and redshirt junior goalkeeper, Laurynn Ziller. Shortly after, in the 39th minute, Dobbs suffered an injury and had to be substituted by LMU freshman forward Claudia Rose.
Being down 2-0, the first half came to an end with LMU on top and UCI hoping to turn things around in their favor in the second half.
In the 52nd minute, UCI finally had the chance to cut LMU’s lead in half when the freshman forward for the Anteaters, Fiona Shin, scored, making it 2-1.
LMU’s tough offense however, responded quickly once again to UCI’s attempts to tie things up with a shot from LMU graduate forward Callan Harrington in the 54th minute. This once again put a gap between the Lions and the Anteaters as LMU led for a majority of the second half, 3-1.
Following multiple substitutions after the 60th minute, the ‘Eaters struggled to find an opening for their offense to catch up to the Lions. Yet, Eater’s sophomore midfielder Milan Heisdorf brought the score to 3-2 in the 81st minute.
Within the last ten minutes of the match, things started to look up for UCI’s offense when they were awarded a corner kick at the 86th minute mark. However, any attempt for at least a draw fell short as the game ended for the ‘Eaters in a 3-2 loss.
Despite the defeat from LMU, UCI will have another exhibition match against the Trinity Western Spartans on Monday, Aug. 11, at Anteater Stadium. This will be the last of the two exhibition matches for UCI. Despite being a non-NCAA university, Trinity Western is a part of the Canada West, a Canadian university athletic conference, and is currently playing exhibition games with universities on the West Coast. So far, they have played against Cal State Northridge (1-2) and UC Santa Barbara (3-1), making UCI the third and last Big West school they will face before their regular season begins back in Canada.
Last season, the Anteaters ended their season with a 6-7-6 record overall and a 4-2-4 conference record, putting them in fourth just behind UC Santa Barbara, who held the same conference record in the Big West Conference. Despite making an appearance in the 2024 Big West Championship, UCI went down in the first round against Cal State Bakersfield 0-1 at home.
Gissel Delgado is a Sports intern for the summer 2025 quarter. She can be reached at gissead1@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Joshua Gonzales