BOX SCORE

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Eastern Kentucky University women’s soccer team fell at BIG EAST foe Louisville, 4-1, on Friday night in the Colonels’ opening game of the 2010 season. Senior Courtney Nestor scored her first career goal in the second half, but it was not enough as the Cardinals held on for the win on their home grass.

“Louisville is clearly a good team, and they’re great on set pieces,” head coach Lindsay Basalyga said. “But I think we’re a better team than the result showed. I’m proud how we attacked and were aggressive, but, unfortunately, when you do that, you leave yourself open.”

The Cards jumped on the Colonels early as Christine Exeter scored the first goal of the game just 15 minutes in, burying a shot into the lower left corner of the goal from eight yards out. Six minutes later, Emily Cardell took a pass from Caitlin Rehder and fired a shot past senior goalkeeper Stephanie Lynch from six yards out that made it 2-0.

The Colonels settled down after the second goal and did not allow a shot on goal after the 21st minute of the half. They also amped up their attack as senior Alex Raich fired a shot that just missed wide left and freshman Tess Akgunduz took EKU’s first shot on goal that Louisville goalkeeper Taylor Vencil made a save on, sending the Colonels into the locker room at halftime still down 2-0.

After Julie Casselman scored just five minutes into the second half to hand the Cards a 3-0 lead, Nestor responded by scoring the Colonels’ first goal of the 2010 season – and first of her career – just one minute later as she buried a beauty from 20 yards out in the upper right corner of the net, making it 3-1 and giving EKU some life with just under 40 minutes left in the game.

“I was really excited because I worked so hard in the preseason,” Nestor said of her goal. “I guess that hard work finally paid off.”

In the 73rd minute, though, the Cards got another one past Lynch as Angelika Lou Uremovich scored from 24 yards away on a free kick that effectively put the Colonels out of contention.

Lynch played all 90 minutes in goal for the Colonels and delivered a valiant effort as the Cards took 18 shots on the night. She recorded two saves in the game.

The Cards outshot EKU in the game, 18-6.

“We need to be more confident in our next game with Xavier,” Nestor said. “Because when we got comfortable in this game, we competed with Lousiville.”

The Colonels will play their home opener on Sunday when they host Xavier at EKU Soccer Field at 1:00 p.m.

“We saw some things we need to improve upon, and we will,” Basalyga said. “We’ll put this game behind us and move on to Sunday.”