Women’s soccer turned on the jets late to secure a 3-1 victory Monday night in Anteater Stadium over visiting Idaho State.

UC Irvine (1-1-0) got goals from Nayeli Requejo, Jenny Konishi, and Lili Andino who all deposited the first of their careers in a 16-minute span of the second half.

Requejo got the scoring going in the 51st minute in a wild play. The ball rolled around the goalline for what seemed like an eternity before Noel Baham and Jenny Konishi pounced on it and fed Requejo near the right post to punch home the opener and make it 1-0, UCI.

The Anteaters wasted no time extending their lead off a brilliant corner kick. Sammie James curved one into the box that glanced off Kiana Palacios and found Konishi positioned perfectly near the left post where she would hammer the ball off a first touch up under the bar for the 2-0 edge in the 53rd minute.

Idaho State (0-2-0) didn’t go quietly reeling the ‘Eaters in in the 59th minute. Maria Sanchez made a sterling individual effort along the right wing weaving in and out of players to create a chance. She darted a low liner under a sprawled out Corey Tobin to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Freshman Lili Andino, however, would administer the final dagger in the 67th minute. Another corner kick flew into the box, this time from Shelby Lee, and would be helped along by Brittany Doan across the box to the sure-footed Andino to slot it in for the third tally of the night.

UCI nearly put home a fourth as Clarissa Robles pounded a free kick from just outside the box, but would catch enough of Tatyana Garrett to send it inches wide of the post.

Coach Juniper was thrilled with not only the result, but the showing from the three scorers.

“When you can bring new players in and they’re scoring goals in their first games at this level, that can only be exciting for the future. I’m thrilled for them, and they’ll build on that this weekend.”

All three scorers could finally smile after the match and enjoy their firsts.

“It feels awesome to score and score one of our first goals,” beamed Requejo.

“I was hanging out at the top of the box and had no idea Brittany [Doan] was going to dummy it,” was Andino’s reaction, which was pretty similar to the senior Konishi’s.

“I don’t think the goalie was expecting mine to come out. I was alone and unmarked with an open net and focused on keeping it down.”

Each player was equally excited about the result as well. Requejo added, “I think we finally blended. We’ve been playing so well and trying to fix everything, we really deserved to win.”

“We responded really well to the first half,” Konishi noted saying the squad put in a new formation it had spent a lot of time on in training. “Hopefully this will carry forward to Texas A&M.”

The next match is already in the sights of the entire team with a return trip to Texas A&M coming up quickly. The ‘Eaters play Friday, Aug. 28 at 5:30 p.m. in a match that will be featured on the SEC Network, one of the ESPN family of networks.

As for tonight’s match, it gives UCI its first win of the season. Some other firsts featured first career points for four ‘Eaters. Along with Requejo and Andino, Doan and Lee scored assists for their first career marks. Konishi’s night featured the first three-point night and game-winning goal of her career.

Freshmen Brittany Nguyen and Kelsee Pottorff made their Anteater debuts on the night as well.

Corey Tobin put up win No. 14 of her career while stopping four shots. She got a little help from her backline turning away a fifth shot. Bengal keeper Sheridan Hapsic stopped eight shots of her own.

Coach Juniper noted that, “we’re always looking for performances. If we play to the level that I know we’re capable of we’ve got a chance to beat anyone. It comes down to this stage of the season we’ve got so many young and new players, figuring out what the right blend is, much like in the second half we seemed to connect some dots that set the team alight at some point, and we looked like we could score at any point.”

Some of those dots came together for the Anteaters who put 11 of their 19 shots on target on the evening, both one short of their team highs in 2014 of 20 shots and 12 on target that they produced twice (vs. Fresno State, vs. CSUN). Eleven different ‘Eaters had a shot and eight put one on frame.

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