SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Junior
Jaety Mandaquit's goal in the 43rd minute stood as the lone score of the match and the Sacramento State defense was stout in the second half, holding off visiting CSUN for a 1-0 victory and picking up three crucial points in the race for a Big West Championship berth on Saturday evening at Hornet Soccer Field.
The Hornets posted their third shutout of the season, improving to 6-6-5 overall and 2-4-3 in league play with the victory. With two regular season matches remaining, Sacramento State has matched its win total from all of 2025 and moved to within three points of a playoff spot heading into the final week of the regular season.
With Saturday's result, the Matadors fell to 5-7-6 overall and 3-3-3 in conference play, still tied for fourth in the Big West standings and hanging on to one of the top six playoff spots as of press time.
CSUN finished with an 8-5 lead in shots in the first 45 minutes, including coming out on the front foot to start the match, attempting six of the first seven shots. Goalkeeper
Delaney Timmons was forced into a pair of saves in that stretch, twice turning away leading scorer Yasmin Azar in the 22nd and 26th minutes and saving another later in the half off a shot by Ariana Lopez-Angel that seemed destined to curl in at the right post.
That build up led to the first — and only — goal of the match with less than two minutes to play. Senior
Lexi Schroeder started the sequence down the left side, danced past a defender toward the end line just outside the 18 before finding enough room to fire a cross to the top of the six.
The ball just cleared the head of
Marely Velazquez Varela but did not miss that of Mandaquit, whose run into the middle of the six-yard box was timed well enough to get her own head on the ball and drive it into the lower right side for the 1-0 lead.
Mandaquit's goal was her career-best third of the season and the fifth of her Hornet career, while Schroeder tallied her fourth assist of the season — the most by a Sacramento State player since Julia Herrera finished with four as a senior in 2021.
Opening the second half, the Hornets made a push for a second score to create some distance, taking the first five shots of the period, but came up empty. Two of those four attempts forced CSUN goalkeeper Hayden Mauldin into a pair of saves on attempts by
Ellie Farber and
Jules Colchico 40 seconds apart.
With the offense on the hunt for a goal, the defense was also clicking limiting the Matadors to just four shots in the final 45 minutes, but none of them on frame as Sacramento State blocked three of those attempts and forced another to sail high.
Mandaquit finished with a match-high five shots as both sides ended the day with 12 attempts overall. Colchico put two of her three on frame to lead the Hornets, as did Azar for CSUN. Timmons finished the day with four saves — all in the first half.
Sacramento State closes out the regular season with a home match on Wednesday (Oct. 28) at 3 p.m. against California Baptist, then hits the road to face Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo on Halloween afternoon at 1 p.m. The match against the Lancers marks the first time this season that the Hornets will play back-to-back contests at home.
