A young boy asked the question that was on everyone’s mind as the women’s soccer team took on the Wright State University (WSU) Raiders in their Horizon League opener on Friday, Sept. 14. Is Oakland going to win?

The Golden Grizzlies fell 1-0 with neither team able to score until the 74th minute when the Raiders scored a goal off the breakaway.

The Oakland and WSU game began with an explosive start. The Golden Grizzlies earned possession of the ball early and hit the Raiders with a strong offense. In the 12th minute senior Hollie Clement made the first shot of the night.

In the 89th minute, Oakland’s Lauryn Souflard appeared to have made a goal, making the crowd go wild. But luck was not with the Golden Grizzlies. The goal was not counted since it was an offside against Wright State.

“I’m really proud of the team’s hard work and effort,” said Head Coach Juan Pablo Favero. “In 90 minutes we created more scoring chances than they did and this is a cruel game sometimes… [WSU’s] a good team and obviously they have a special player who scored for them, and that’s the risk we ran playing very attacking minded tonight.”

Overall, the Black and Gold made more shots (8) and shots on goal (5) than the Raiders during the entire game. Clement, Sierra Grodsinsky and Alexa Sabbagh each recorded two shots and one shot on goal for Oakland.

“I think we played one, if not the hardest performance we’ve put out this season,” Clement said. “There’s been those games where we’ve been on top, and I think tonight was one of them. It’s literally just a thing of luck now. We’ve had so many chances and they’re just not going in, but we’re going to keep working hard.”

Favero wants to improve the team’s ability to score on the chances they get.

“That’s obviously something we have to keep working on,” he said. “That’s probably our biggest fallacy right now where we fall short. But we’re creating chances and it’d be worse if [we] didn’t have chances to score, that’d be a bigger problem.”

Despite the loss the team suffered, Favero will not let this defeat hold them back for the rest of the season.

“Our expectation is that this [losing streak] is going to turn around and that we’re going to get the results,” he said. “They’re a great group, they’re working hard and they deserve better results. It’s just hard work and it takes time, and we’re in the middle of it.”

Oakland (0-8, 0-1 HL) will face Cleveland State University in their next Horizon League game. The Golden Grizzlies and the Vikings will go head to head at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Soccer Field on Saturday, Sept. 22.