Despite dominating the Case Western Spartans for most of the game, the Buffalo State women’s soccer team lost a heartbreaker Wednesday, 2-1, at Coyer Field.

“I thought we were flat against D’Youville in our last game,” head coach Nick DeMarsh said. “I think today (against Case Western) we were fired up, we were sharp, we were intense, we didn’t have any hangover from a bad performance. I thought we were very good today.”

The Bengals were ready to go right at the opening whistle and they dominated early on. Freshman midfielder Brianna Knight opened the scoring on a penalty kick about 6 minutes into play and her first career goal gave the Bengals a 1-0 lead.

In the second half, the Spartans came out a lot stronger and were pushing the pace of the game. The Bengals’ defense stood tall and kept the lead until there was only about 16 minutes left in the contest, at which point Jessica Sabers fired one past the Bengal goaltender and tied the game up at one.

“That made us realize we can’t lose concentration,” senior forward Megan Chapple said. “I think we lost concentration a little after halftime.”

Both defenses stood their ground for the remainder of the game and forced overtime. In the overtime the Spartans didn’t even allow the Bengals to get a chance, as Sabers scored once again, just two minutes into the extra frame to give the Spartans the 2-1 victory.

In the second half and the overtime the Bengals had to deal not only with the attack of the Spartans, but with the inclement weather.

“The weather played a huge factor,” DeMarsh said. “In the second half the wind really picked up and just pinned us back. The weather on this field is notoriously bad this time of year.”

“I would throw the ball in and it wouldn’t even stay in bounds because the wind would just carry it,” sophomore defender Kristina Change said. “Especially with our shots, they would soar over the net, that’s not exactly what we’re looking for.”

“It’s easy when you play with the wind to keep the ball in the other end they pinned us back,” DeMarsh said. “When you throw a ball in 20 yards it comes 10 yards back in your face, so for the overtime the flip was really important and we lost the coin flip, so the last 10 minutes we were going to play against the wind again.”

It was a tough loss to a good team, but the Bengals weren’t hanging their heads at all, they were eager to get back on the field.

“I think yesterday we started to come together as a team more,” Chapple said. “We’re starting to figure each other out, we have a young team and I think our chemistry is starting to come together and I think that really showed yesterday.”

With the loss, the Bengals fell to 1-1-2 on the season. Change knows that it isn’t the best start to the season, but she is keeping an optimistic attitude.

“I really enjoyed the way we connected yesterday,” Change said. “Although we didn’t get the result we wanted there was still a lot of positive things to take out of it.”

The Bengals then took that optimistic attitude on the road to Bradford, Pennsylvania Saturday, to take on undefeated Pitt-Bradford.

In the first half the Bengals outshot the Panthers by a 10-6 margin, but the game remained scoreless until the second half.  About four minutes in, the Panthers’ Jamie Christensen scored to give them a 1-0 lead. That was all the Panthers would need.

The Bengals finished the game with 15-9 advantage in shots and didn’t allow a shot on goal in the final 21 minutes. Despite their strong effort, Buffalo State couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net and the game ended in a 1-0 score in favor of the Panthers.

The loss dropped the Bengals to 1-2-2 on the season. They’ll look to get back in the win column when they play Allegheny at Coyer Field on Wednesday at 5 p.m.