SACRAMENTO — Junior defender Erika Tilford calmly buried a penalty kick to the right side following a handball in the box in the 76th minute and it was enough to lift the Sacramento State women's soccer team to a 1-0 victory over Eastern Washington on Friday afternoon at Hornet Soccer Field.
The win improved the Hornets to 4-6-3 overall and 2-1-1 in Big Sky Conference play, clinching their first victory since a 1-0 shutout of Northern Arizona on Sept. 22. The four shutouts this year are the most since Sacramento State finished with 10 during the 2019 campaign.
With the defeat, the Eagles fell to 2-10-1 overall and 1-2-1 in league.
The play began with a throw in on the far side for the Hornets by Teysha-Ray Spinney-Kuahuia that bounced over a pair of players and was knocked down by an Eastern Washington defender in the box attempting to clear the ball away from danger.
With Sacramento State's usual penalty taker Abigail Lopez having been subbed out (2-for-2 on the year), Tilford came all the way up from her centerback position and caught the EWU keeper hopping the wrong way, placing a right-footed shot to the lower right side for the only score of the day.
It was Tilford's first collegiate goal as she became the seventh different Hornet to find the back of the net this season. Tilford now has three points on the year, adding an assist on teammate Cassandra Herrman's game-winner off a corner against UC Riverside back on Aug. 31.
The Hornets then played out the final 14-plus minutes, nearly doubling their advantage four minutes later on a pair of opportunities by
Madelyn Dougherty from close range that were turned away by the Eagles' keeper, while freshman goalkeeper
Izzy Palmatier denied EWU's leading scorer Maddie Morgan with just under five minutes to play.
Sacramento State finished with a season-high 21 shot attempts to only 10 for Eastern Washington, posting its highest single-match shot total since putting forth a barrage of 27 attempts against North Dakota in a 3-0 win on Oct. 1, 2017. Sophomore
Madelyn Dougherty led all players with six attempts, putting three on frame, while Lopez and Spinney-Kuahuia each added four.
For Palmatier, she finished with four saves en route to the shutout, logging her third clean sheet of the season.
Sacramento State closes out the home portion of it's 2023 schedule on Sunday (Oct. 8) at 1 p.m., welcoming Idaho to Hornet Soccer Field.
