Photo courtesy of Nevada Athletics. Nevada lost the last non-conference game.

Nevada soccer lost 3-0 against Saint Mary’s College of California at an away game on Sept. 19. This is the Wolf Packs sixth loss in non-conference play. 

SMC started off the first half very strong. At 2:04, fifth-year forward AnnaMaria DiGeronimo was assisted by junior midfielder Suzuna Shibukawa for the first—and very early—goal of the game. This came right after an offside against Nevada. Nevada junior goalkeeper Emily McCue came out to take it away from DiGeronimo, but DiGeronimo flipped it ahead and kicked it in the left side of the goal. 

Junior forward Gabby Brown had the first shot for the Wolf Pack at 4:48, but it was saved by freshman goalkeeper Cambria Kingman. Another Nevada shot came in at 9:39 by sophomore forward Olivia Fothergill, but was shot far out to the right of the goal. 

The next four shots were from SMC, and one made it to the back of the net. Left-footer Shibukawa scored the goal at 25:13, making the score 2-0. McCue’s dive was not enough to save the ball. 

Nevada had a total of four fouls in the span of eight minutes which led SMC to have multiple free kicks to get down the field. This helped them set up for a goal by senior midfielder Carly Hittenmiller to make it 3-0 at 36:00. Hittenmiller had a 1-on-1 move which opened up the field for a clear shot to the right side of the goal.

To end the first half, junior midfielder Isabella Santavicca got a yellow card at 41:46, although this was not helpful to Nevada. 

No goals were scored in the second half, but SMC had eight shots while Nevada only had 5. The number of fouls during the game were high, with Nevada at 10 and SMC at eight. 

Late in the half, Brown got a yellow card at 80:58. Again, no real gain was attained after this occurrence. 

SMC walked away with a 6-2 record for their non-conference play. 

Nevada’s Mountain West conference play starts Sept. 24 at Utah State University at 3 p.m.

Kelsey Middleton can be reached at kelseymiddleton@sagebrush.unr.edu or on Twitter @kelsmiddleunr