Cougars Women's Soccer Pulls Away in Closing Minutes, Steals 2-0 Win vs. UC Irvine

After 45 minutes, Washington State head coach Chris Citowicki slowly got up from his red fold up chair. He shook his head and inched forward. Hanging his head, he grabbed a white erase board and conversed with his coaching staff.

Citowicki might have been going over formations or plays, but the message between the coaches at halftime stuck with his team and was the deciding factor in the Cougars 2-0 victory over UC Irvine Thursday night at Lower Soccer Field.

The score remained 0-0 through 82 minutes. Both teams had good looks but solid goalkeeping from both sides kept the score at nothing a piece. Citowicki liked the looks his team got, and honing in on a specific look finally broke the stalemate in the 83rd minute. 

“All our best chances are the crosses from these areas [sideline] because they were over shifting the backline. Now, we had numbers up in the middle of the box, so it was just like wait until we get another one of those and then execute,” Citowicki said. “We knew where the ball had to be and got people there and look at that, the ball goes in.”