The ASU women's soccer team came away with one win and one loss in its first two games of the 2007 season at the UNLV Adidas Classic in Las Vegas last weekend.
The Sun Devils (1-1-0) started off on the right foot in their first game by beating Idaho State, 1-0, on Friday before dropping their second game against UNLV, 2-1, on Sunday.
The victory against ISU was not only the first of the 2007 season, but the first ASU win for new head coach Kevin Boyd.
The first half against ISU was a struggle on offense for both teams as neither one recorded a goal.
The Sun Devils finally broke through in the 50th minute of play when junior forward Carla Scanniello found the back of the net off a pass from sophomore defender Liz Harkin to score the game's only goal and the first of her Sun Devil career.
"I think in both situations this weekend we were the better team, so I think eventually that started showing true," Boyd said. "In the game on Friday it started showing true in the second half and we started doing the things we want to be known for."
Defense proved to be the difference for the Sun Devils as they only allowed six shots in the shutout, including just one in the second half.
Sophomore goalkeeper Briana Silvestri earned the win for the Sun Devils in her first career start.
UNLV, however, was able to break through the Sun Devils' defense on Sunday as it scored two goals in the first half.
"We made some young errors, some errors that you need to make sure you don't make," Boyd said. "It [was] things that eventually could lead to a goal, and in this case they did lead to a goal directly.
"It's unlucky, but if we hadn't made those mistakes we wouldn't have been in that spot to begin with."
The Rebels initially got on the board in the 31st minute of play when freshman midfielder Amanda Forrester scored on a header off a corner kick.
The second goal came just five minutes later when sophomore midfielder Brianna Moore scored on a header off a free kick to make the score 2-0 Rebels going into halftime.
The Sun Devils added a goal themselves in the second half when freshman forward Karin Volpe scored her first collegiate goal off a rebounded save in the 46th minute.
The Sun Devils also turned up the defense in the second half as they did not allow a goal, but they could not find the back of the net again and ended up falling by a score of 2-1.
Despite being on the wrong end of the scoreboard, the Sun Devils dominated the Rebels in many areas as they recorded 23 shots to UNLV's 12 and had 12 corner kicks to UNLV's five.
"Soccer's an unlucky game sometimes," Boyd said. "It's not always the fairest game and we were on the wrong side of the ball bouncing. When you dominate a team like that you generally win the game."
Reach the reporter at: gina.mizell@asu.edu.
