Photo by Sam Thiel SMSU’s Selena Prolic controls the ball during their game against Northern State University on Sunday. SMSU fell to Northern State 2-0.

MARSHALL — After earning its first home victory of the season against MSU Moorhead on Friday, the Southwest Minnesota State University soccer team looked to maintain its momentum against Northern State University. The Wolves had other ideas, though, and used a pair of first-half goals to earn a 2-0 victory on Sunday at Mattke Field.

SMSU coach Erin Kasmarik-Mallett said they had a tough stretch in the first half where Northern State took advantage, but was pleased with how her team continued to battle and responded with a strong second half.

“We had a tough first half, basically there was about a five-minute spell where we just didn’t quite have our ‘A’ game and give Northern credit, they put two goals in really quickly,” Kasmarik-Mallett said. “Overall, I really loved how we responded in the first half after the goals and thought we got better. I loved our performance in the second half and those will be the things we’ll take away more than those couple of moments.”

Both teams had quality scoring chances in the early stages, but weren’t able to find the back of the net. Northern State continued to attack, though, and were later rewarded with a goal with 22:57 left in the first half to go up 1-0. The Wolves weren’t done there, as a goal roughly a minute later pushed their lead to 2-0, which stood until halftime.

SMSU looked to make a charge in the second half, but wasn’t able to capitalize on its scoring chances, and Northern State held on for the victory.

The Mustangs outshot the Wolves 12-9 on the game, including a 7-5 advantage in shots on goal. Abbey Hoisington led SMSU with four total shots while Destinee Lopez, Kirsten Wetterstrom and Jessica Jugovich each had two. Kirsten Wetterstrom, Hoisington and Jugovich led in shots on goal with two each.

Meghan Harkin recorded three saves in goal for SMSU.

Up next

SMSU (3-8-1 overall, 2-7-1 NSIC) will hit the road next week, facing Bemidji State University on Friday at 6 p.m. before taking on the University of Minnesota Crookston next Sunday at 1 p.m. Kasmarik-Mallett said their key takeaway will be continuing to build on their positives from their games as well as grow from their mistakes.

“Bemidji’s a great team and is having a fantastic season and that’s going to be a really tough test for us, but our goal every game whether we win or lose is to take all of the positives that we can and build into them and then any of the things that we need to grow or improve upon, that’s what we spend the week doing,” Kasmarik-Mallett said.