Box Score ATHERTON, Calif. --- It's a good thing Head Coach Erin Brunelle prepped the No. 14 Biola Women's Soccer team with a whole lot of conditioning in the offseason, because the women played their fourth overtime match of the season on Tuesday afternoon at Menlo.
 
The Eagles and Oaks played all 110 minutes in Atherton and ended in a 1-1 draw to open the 2015 Golden State Athletic Conference schedule.
 
The first half saw both teams with equal possession and equal scoring opportunities in a back-and-forth style that was played primarily in the neutral midfield.
 
Biola led with four shots-on-goal, while the Oaks got just two balls on frame through the first 45 minutes. However, one of those two shots-on-goal went in past Marina Rodriguez to give the Oaks a 1-0 lead headed into halftime.
 
Biola's best chance of the first half came when a Samantha Verduzco got a ball in the box and turned it around on goal where it was stopped by a Menlo defender after Verduzco got the ball up and over the Menlo keeper.
 
The second half saw a bit more offensive opportunity on each side of the field, but again the majority of the chances went in favor of the Eagles who were in search of the game-tying goal.
 
Biola got three chances back-to-back-to-back in a five second span as Verduzco and Taylor Venegas combined for three shots-on-goal in the best early opportunity to find the equalizer about nine minutes into the second half.
 
Late in the second period it looked as if it would come down to a solid goalkeeping performance by the Oaks' Kaylin Swart being good enough to hold off a Biola offense that had not really had problems with any other member of the Menlo defense.
 
Swart adequately defended the first nine shots-on-goal from the Eagles high-pressure offense and did well in choosing when to come out and meet attackers one-on-one to end the many Biola runs.
 
However, her streak of saves was snapped in the 81^st minute when Venegas got her head on the end of a ball into the box from Ashley Ramirez to find the equalizer that Swart had been so sensationally defending against.
 
Venegas's goal is the first goal Menlo Women's Soccer allowed since Sept. 1. The Oaks had gone five matches without allowing a ball to find the back of the net.
 
The game's intensity went way up following the equalizer as the two teams traded chances blow-for-blow over the final nine minutes of regulation.
 
No one found the back of the net on any chances in the final minutes of regulation or in overtime as the game finished as even as it was at the start. It is Menlo's fourth tie of the season and Biola's second.

Rodriguez got her first start of the season in goal and did well with her only blemish coming early in the first half when a bouncing ball got redirected past her. She ended the game with saves on four of the five Menlo chances on goal.
 
With the tie Biola remains undefeated at 6-0-2 (0-0-1 GSAC) and Menlo moves to 4-1-4 (0-0-1 GSAC). The Eagles return home for a stretch of five home games in a row beginning with Saturday's matchup with San Diego Christian (5-2-1, 0-1 GSAC).