NATCHITOCHES—A second half flurry from Houston Christian was the difference in a 3-1 Northwestern State loss at the hands of the Huskies on Thursday evening at the Demon Soccer Complex.
NSU (7-7. 4-2) saw its school-record 15-match unbeaten streak come to an end, falling last in front of the home crowd almost exactly two years to the day.
The Huskies (7-3-5, 3-0-3) used three goals in a span of 10 minutes to turn a Demons lead into an HCU road win, their 10
th straight game without a loss dating back to the beginning of September.
"I thought we were brilliant in the first half," head coach
Ian Brophy said. "We obviously let the second half get away from us and started to lose the physical matchups a little bit. Some of their goals were just silly little defending mistakes that I thought we could do a lot better on. All 11 players have to stay focused for all 90 minutes."
HCU moved into a tie with the Demons and UIW for second place behind Lamar after the Cardinals recorded a 1-0 win over UIW.
After HCU controlled the first part of the opening half, the Demons fought back, like they always do.
The Huskies recorded the game's first four shot attempts in the first 17 minutes, but the Demons fought back with seven of the half's final eight shot attempts, including the lone goal in the opening 45 minutes.
Alexia Adimmah, a freshman from Sainte-Brigitte-de-Lavall, Quebec, Canada, sent a perfect cross into the box to
Tiana Cruz and the junior did the rest, sending a one-timer into the bottom right corner of the goal to capture the lead.
NSU had been outstanding in the second halves of games, but the Huskies dominated possession in the second half. The Demons withstood HCU's pressure, but defensive lapses led to a pair of Huskies goals less than a minute a part.
On the first one, Ella Remy blasted a shot that hit the crossbar, but the ball caromed down to Isabella Alamo, who put the ball home to tie the score in the 73
rd minute.
Less than a minute later, Olivia Rossman sent a pass to Madison Stormberg and she did the rest for the go-ahead goal and eventual game-winner.
Paisley Barela put the game out of reach with a goal from outside the top left corner of the box and just over the outstretched arms of NSU goalkeeper
Audrey Marfia, who recorded five saves.
HCU had nine shots in the second half, compared to five for NSU, but three of them came after the Huskies third goal.
Three players had two shot attempts for the Demons:
Gabriela Page,
Kendall Hemperley and
Emily Gundin.
"I thought we created enough chances to score more than one goal," Brophy said. "We got into some really good positions, but we wasted them. Every time we got into a really good position, we smashed it over or didn't put the ball on frame and didn't test the goalkeeper enough. You can't score if you don't put the shot on frame."
NSU aims to rebound on Oct. 22 when it travels to Southeastern Louisiana before coming back home against Nicholls for its annual Fork Cancer game on Oct. 25.
