SAN DIEGO, Calif. --- Under some gloomy skies in San Diego Biola Women's Soccer cracked the cover on the first chapter of its 2021 PacWest Conference SoCal Pod play against the Point Loma Sea Lions.

Point Loma kept its PacWest play undefeated streak alive, up to 25-straight matches, with one goal each half leading to a 2-0 victory. It was a good opportunity early in the season for Head Coach Erin Brunelle to see what her young squad is made of against a quality side. Biola has been one of the only programs to be able to keep pace with PLNU over the past few years, with this being the first loss against PLNU since 2018.

"We learned a lot from playing this good, tough opponent right out of the gate," said Brunelle. "They do not have very many weaknesses at all on the pitch, so it was up to us to combat their abilities with what we do well.

The Sea Lions controlled possession for most of the game, only allowing a handful of permission counterattacks for the Eagles, which were few and far between in this one.

The back-to-back defending PacWest Champions took 22 shots, seven of them going on target, to make Biola work consistently hard in the defensive third, often having seven or eight defenders/midfielders having to be backed into the box.

"One of the things we do well is good, solid group defending. We relied heavily on that group defending today, which we've been working on since day one," said Brunelle.

Biola ended with just three shots total, with all of them coming in the first half. 

The Eagles had one promising opportunity with about 11 minutes left as Halie Jamir came up with a steal just outside the 18-yard box, but she could not quite complete the lead pass to set up the one-time shot from the right post.

"There were times our group defending paid back and won us the ball at good spots on the field, but when it did we lacked on the execution," said Brunelle. We will be working on building chemistry, which will help up get better at transitioning defense to offense."

Other than that opportunity sparked by Jamir's takeaway, the second 45-minute stanza was all PLNU. The Sea Lions had 14 of their 22 shot attempts in the second period. It was the 10th such chance that allowed them the insurance of going up 2-0 in the 71st minute on an incredible strike from distance that worked its way past the BU keeper.

Anna Boyer and Briana Ruelas again split time in goal for Brunelle, with Ruelas managing two saves and one goal against and Boyer three saves and one goal against.

The first goal was caused by a defensive lapse allowing a look from six yards out that deflected in off the left glove of a diving Ruelas.

"Point Loma capitalized on some lapses in the back on our part," said Brunelle. "They showed us the importance of being locked in at all times defensively and being able to take care of our individual responsibilities on defense."

Despite the final score line, the trip down to San Diego was well worth the experience as it allows this Biola team to find some focus areas for the next week of training as they get back to the grind of this short season.

"This game was not without opportunity for us, but we still were not too dangerous in our attack and this was a good opportunity to learn," said Brunelle.

Biola falls to 0-1-0 (0-1-0 PacWest) with the loss. Point Loma improves to 1-0-0 (1-0-0 PacWest). The next chance on the pitch for Brunelle's side is a 7 p.m. home match against Concordia Irvine next Wednesday. It will be the first countable contest for CUI who opens their season with a scrimmage against Vanguard tonight.

Watch the free live stream of next week's game on the Biola Athletics YouTube Channel.