The Auburn Tigers Women's Soccer team (10-9-3) reached its goal of making it to the NCAA Tournament, but its season came to an end Friday night with a 2-1 overtime loss to the University of California at Berkeley Golden Bears (11-8-1) at the Seminole Soccer Complex on Florida State University's campus.
"It was one of those heartbreaking losses," said head coach Karen Hoppa. "I don't think the shots or the score indicate how the match went. We played very hard, but came up short in the end, but that's how things are sometimes."
The Tigers were down 1-0 at the half when California junior forward Alex Morgan scored from 17 yards out, hitting the inside left post.
The shot was Cal's eighth shot of the match and the fifth from Morgan, three of which were on goal.
Morgan took six of Cal's nine first half shots and finished with 10 shots for the game.
"We started off a little slow, maybe we were just a little bit nervous because it was the NCAA tournament," Hoppa said. "We came together, I told them to relax and we played great after that."
The Tigers came out and took control of the second half.
Freshman forward Mary Coffed took the ball deep into Cal territory, shot and forced a deflection and Auburn's sixth corner of the match.
Sophomore forward Heather Havron took the corner and bent it in from the right to tie the game 1-1 in the 59th minute.
The Tigers scored again and seemingly took a 2-1 lead in the 85th minute when sophomore midfielder Katy Frierson sent a corner into the box which was headed in, but a foul was called on Auburn, keeping the match tied.
"Heather's got a great corner," Frierson said after Friday's game. "She is so consistent on them and she just did what she usually does and it went in for us. It was a great goal."
In overtime, Auburn had a tough time keeping up with Cal.
The Golden Bears outshot the Tigers 6-0 in overtime and 22-12 in the game.
California junior forward Lisa Kevorkian finished off a cross from forward Alex Morgan to win the game and send them to the next round of the tournament.
"Cal stepped it up in overtime," Hoppa said. "They have one of the best forwards in the country, and she made a great run and found a player wide open at the goal."
Auburn finished the game with 12 shots on goal and nine corners. They will hit the practice fields again early next year.
"It was a great honor to play in the NCAA tournament and we're going to continue to work hard as a team and make sure we make it further than we did this year," Havron said.
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