For 90 minutes, the ball failed to find the back of the net for either team, but just 47 seconds into overtime, Khadijah Greenwood of Cal State Los Angeles (1-1-1) gave the Golden Eagles a 1-0 victory over No. 11 Westmont College (1-2-1). 

“It is amazing how differently you feel about the game, just based on the result,” Westmont head coach Dave Wolf said. “If the same game had ended 0-0 or we had won 1-0, we would be feeling like we had made good progress over our previous outings.”

The Warriors dominated possession of the ball throughout regulation and outshot the Golden Eagles 11-5. Westmont also posted a 4-1 corner kick advantage.

“I thought the team played very well today,” Wolf said. “I really liked how we passed the ball today. I thought that it was our best performance so far and that we improved in some of the areas we are trying to be better in. I feel badly for the team because I thought they really applied things beautifully today. So, it’s a hard loss.”

The Golden Eagles came out charging hard in the overtime period. When the whistle sounded, Cal State L.A. made a hard push, trying to catch the Warriors off guard. Westmont rebuffed the attack, but seconds later Greenwood got the ball of the left side. She dribbled past her defender and found herself one-on-one with Westmont keeper Natalie Johnston. Greenwood uncorked a shot from about 12 yards out to the upper right corner, bringing the game to an abrupt end.

“We were pretty good between the boxes,” Wolf said, “but you have to be able to turn your good play into goals. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of games like today where you have the run of the play, but you walk away with nothing to show for it.

“Skyla (Lauda) did a terrific job in the center of the defense. Her calmness passing the ball was outstanding and I thought she was very tough one-vs.-one. Taylor (Callan) had a very good game — probably the kind of game we would expect her to have on a regular basis. Bailey Esquivel came in and gave us some good minutes off the bench. She hasn’t played a lot, but she did a good job coming in and helping us. And there were several other good individual performances as well.”

The Warriors will have 11 days to regroup before taking to the pitch again, this time to take on the Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz. Kickoff is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sept. 20.

Ron Smith is Westmont College‘s sports information director.