The Golden Grizzlies women’s soccer team put in a great effort against a very solid team — the DePaul Blue Demons — but came up short in a stinging 1-0 loss on Thursday, Aug. 26. 

Despite DePaul only having control of the ball for 47% of the game, the combination of their fast-paced, breakneck speed-driven offense and their suffocating, stifling defense seemed to just overwhelm the Grizzlies.

Nothing was able to get past DePaul’s defense once the Grizzlies were able to get the ball past midfield — the Golden Grizzlies were only able to get one shot on goal during the entire first half of the game. It almost felt like the Blue Demons would give a little slack to the Grizzlies offense, then clamp down and become increasingly aggressive once they felt the Grizzlies had made it too far into their territory. 

Nearly everything was going the Blue Demons way on both sides of the ball — except for the tangible scoring — as both teams put on a defensive showcase out on the pitch and tried to snuff out the offensive flashes and sparks where they could. 

Goalie Noëmi Stadelmann was the definitive star of the night on the pitch with six individual saves, compared to DePaul’s Mollie Eriksson’s one save. As a fan watching the game, some of Stadelmann’s saves during her 90 minutes on the pitch were truly daring and breathtaking. Without her standing guard in the goal, the score could’ve gotten even higher with how dominant DePaul was playing on offense. The score, however, was kept at 0-0 for an entire half, despite DePaul getting 15 shots on goal in the first half. 

The one goal that did get past Stadelmann, however, was scored by the Blue Demons’ Morgan Turner, a short time into the second half of the match. The energetic, unassisted goal — which would turn out to be the game-sealing score — was followed by a defensive showcase being put on by the Blue Demons as they desperately tried to keep the game from going into overtime. 

As good as their defensive efforts were, there were quite a number of fouls called during both halves of the game on both sides. DePaul ended the night with 15 fouls, and 11 of those were called in the first half. Oakland played with a lot more restraint, only notching five fouls, with the bulk of them (three) coming in the second half. Four yellow cards were given out, two for each team, with three of them (both of the Golden Grizzlies’ cards and only one of the Blue Demons’) coming in the second half. 

Overall, this game was a showcase for how good the Blue Demons’ can truly be defensively and how that can translate into offensive success. Unfortunately, Head Coach Juan Pablo Favero couldn’t be reached for comment after the game. 

The next home outing for the Grizzlies will be against the Toledo Rockets on Thursday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.