DAVIS, Calif. – The Aztec lacrosse team (1-2) fell at UC Davis (1-0) 16-13 Sunday afternoon. SDSU was led by their pair of transfers Deanna Balsama and Julia Lytle, who combined for 11 goals.
Balsama tied the career-high of six goals she set while at George Mason and Lytle, a Rutgers transfer, set new career-highs with five goals and seven ground balls.
"It's obviously a disappointing loss," Head coach Kylee White said after the game. "We had some good individual efforts with exceptional performances from Julia and Deanna. Their ability to continue to attack and not let up was amazing. We had so many shots in that first quarter but kept hitting the pipe unfortunately. I'm glad they continued to shoot and continued to battle."
It was a tight game throughout where UC Davis outshot the Aztecs 36-34, and the teams were even in shots on goal 29-29. 12 of SDSU's shots came in the first quarter.
The Aggies scored the first two goals of the game and then the teams traded 3-0 runs, with SDSU going up 3-3 and then trailing 5-3 before tying it up 5-5 on Brooke Waddell's second goal of the first half with 11:48 left in the second quarter.
UC Davis then scored four of the next five goals and held a 10-7 lead at the half.
Lytle scored two quick goals to begin the third quarter to bring the score to 10-9 Davis, but that would be all the scoring for SDSU in the third quarter while the Aggies scored five unanswered goals and went up 15-9, a deficit SDSU couldn't overcome.
The Aggies had a 20-13 advantage in draw controls and caused 17 SDSU turnovers compared to 10 caused by the Aztecs.
Aztec goalkeeper Sam Horan had 13 saves, the same as her Aggie counterpart. Cailin Young led SDSU with seven draw controls.
The Aggies's Alex Agnew had a team-high four goals and four assists.
STAT OF THE GAME
The Aztecs were 18-for-18 in clears.
QUOTE OF THE GAME
"We let them get too many goals close up. We need to do a better job of protecting our goalie and the middle, but we felt we were going to come back and win but we just ran out of time at the end." Head coach Kylee White
THE NOTE
Julia Lytle set new career-highs in goals (5) and ground balls (7).
UP NEXT
The Aztecs are back on the road next weekend, playing at Arizona State Friday and at Oregon on Sunday. Both games are at noon.
Aztecs Fall at UC Davis 16-13
