Aug. 14, 2015
SAN DIEGO -
Long Beach State-San Diego State Final Box
San Diego State defeated Long Beach State, 1-0, on a Victoria Barba goal Friday night in an exhibition game at a warm SDSU Sports Deck. The contest represented the lone tune-up for next Friday's season opener vs. Utah Valley.
"It was a good start to the preseason," Aztec head coach Mike Friesen said. "I thought in the second half we had a different mentality than we did in the first half, so we're going to build off that. We saw some really good individual things out of Leah Pruitt, and from Angela Mitchell, Aliyah Utush and Hedda Regefalk up top. We had a lot of dynamic play and as that comes together, we're going to be really dangerous. We just need to make sure we bring the defensive side of it in and play like we did in the second half throughout the game, which is going to set us up for success."
After a scoreless first half, Utush was taken down in the box in the 60th minute setting up a penalty-kick situation for Victoria Barba. In her first game action since last September, Barba calmly put her shot past 49er goalkeeper Ashton McKeown to give the Aztecs a lead it would not relinquish.
SDSU controlled the game from start to finish and never gave Long Beach State any openings offensively. In the second half alone, the Aztecs allowed just one shot, which came in the 71st minute and was easily saved by Melanie Vaughn.
For the night, San Diego State outshot LBSU, 8-3, and held a 3-1 advantage in shots on goal. Barba and Pruitt led all players with three shots apiece. Barba, meanwhile, had a game-high two shots on goal. Mitchell and Gemma Craine rounded out the Aztecs' shot count with one each. Defensively, Vaughn made one save in nearly 72 minutes of action. The senior was replaced by freshman Kate Hart, who played just over 18 minutes between the pipes.
San Diego State will take the week to prepare for the aforementioned season opener vs. the Wolverines. The Friday, Aug. 21, opener is set for 7 p.m. PT atop SDSU Sports Deck. Admission is free and the game will also stream live at GoAztecs.com via the Mountain West Network.