By Megan Acuna |Staff Writer|

Under the clear sunny skies of La Jolla, the Coyotes suffered their first loss of the season against the Tritons of UC San Diego.

A pair of well-placed goals bested the Coyotes as they finally fell out of their no-loss streak after nine games. So far this season their record is 3-1-6 overall and 3-1-4 in conference, which is a great lead into the final half of the season.

Last year the Coyotes were 7-9-2 overall and had a troublesome season that they were unable to recover from. The blame was placed on bad luck and insufficient experience, but the talent was there.

The first goal from the UCSD Tritons came early in the game during the twelfth minute. The Coyotes came on strong with offense and attempted seven shots in the first period, but seemed to lose steam in the second and only posted four attempted shots but had only five shots on goal overall.

The Coyotes were able to hold the Tritons off until late in the second period at the seventy-ninth minute when the final goal gave them a 2-0 loss.

Freshman Ricardo Velasco gave a stellar performance as he was close to scoring four times throughout the course of the game. He finished with four shots on goal out of the five overall attempted by the team but was unable to get a shot past the Triton’s goalkeeper.

In addition, Raul Gomez had two attempts while Leo Mendoza, Ricky Prouty, Corey Christ, Daniel Lopez and Demetri Burgos all had one attempt. Daniel Lopez was the only other Coyote to have a shot on goal.

Coyote goalie Tanner Olinger had three saves during the game and played the entire ninety minute match with two goals allowed. There were two team saves with a total of five saves throughout the match. One in the first period and four in the second period.

The boys are showing definite promise this year, having only allowed four goals against them this season with only three being in CCAA.

In their previous three games, they shut out every opponent with scores of 0-0, 1-0 and 2-0.

The Coyotes recently tied the NCAA record for most 0-0 ties in one single season. They’ve tied 0-0 to CSULA, Cal Poly Pomona, SF State, and NW Nazarene.

With only one loss so far they are well on their way to massively improving their record from last season.

Overall we have a young team consisting of fifteen underclassmen and ten upperclassmen. With a lot of practice, teamwork and perseverance, our Coyotes have a lot of room to grow.

The Coyotes have seven games left in the season with plenty of room to improve and ensure this season will be the best we’ve seen.

Their next game is against Sonoma State University. The Coyotes have never beaten the SSU Seawolves in twenty tries.

The game takes place in Rohnert Park Sunday, Oct. 7 at 2 p.m.