By Jordan Ondrof

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“Be stronger, be tougher,” head coach Jon Lipsitz yells from the sideline as midfielder Katy Keen loses possession of the ball.

That was the story of the night for UK women’s soccer Sunday night as the Cats were defeated 2-0 by San Diego State. The midfield and defense was shaky at best, creating errors that led to shots on goal and losing possession at every turn.

“There was a lack in focus for us,” midfielder Courtney Raetzman said. “We knew they were going to come out in the first five (minutes) and we wanted to do the same and we didn’t so they punished us. That’s on us.”

A defensive turnover by left-center back Olivia Jester outside of the box led to San Diego State’s first goal, a strike from forward Angela Mitchell.

“I was very concerned about our preparation these past few days,” Lipsitz said. “I’ve felt like our preparation was poor. Quite frankly, you can’t think you are prepared to play a team like San Diego State if you haven’t done the work.”

11 seconds and one player was all it took for the Aztecs to score their second goal. After the whistle blew to start the second half, UK turned it over to SDSU midfielder Milan Moses who found her way to the back of the net untouched, unassisted. It was the type of goal you see in eight-year-old rec league, not in college soccer. An embarrassed Cats team looked at each other stunned and defeated.

“I would like to say I was surprised, but frankly with the issues we’ve had the last couple of days with our preparation and our leadership, I’m not stunned,” Lipsitz said. “San Diego State earned the win today and we earned the loss.”

In a game where the Cats defense crumbled, the offense did not look much better. UK only took 5 shots compared to the Aztecs 11, with only one shot being of quality. Kaitlin Miller hit a bomb from 30 yards out, but this time the keeper wasn’t her toughest opponent, it was the cross bar.

A frustrated Lipsitz plans to face the issues with this team head on in order to resolve them before the season slips away.

“We are going to handle things very directly,” Lipsitz said. “I don’t believe in handling things behind closed doors and talking about people, I talk to people and as a program that’s what we do and our players that did not do their job preparing, we will talk to them as a staff and let them know what our expectations are.”

The Cats are now 1-1 on the season with their win coming Friday night in the season opener against No. 20 Washington. UK hopes to make changes and bounce back on Friday at 5 p.m. against UNC Greensboro at the Bell Soccer Complex.

“Its still the beginning of the season, but I’m confident that we will go up from here and fix things,” Raetzman said.