Michigan Tech forward Brooke Green controls the ball during a match against Roosevelt Sunday at Kearly Stadium in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — With a potential GLIAC Tournament spot on the line, the Michigan Tech Huskies soccer team played a strong first half against the visiting Roosevelt Lakers. However, two goals from Carisma Rosales in the second half propelled the Lakers to a 2-0 win at Kearly Stadium Sunday.

“The wind was a bit of a factor, a little bit, but, yeah, we just, we didn’t possess the ball,” said Huskies coach Melissa Kuhar. “We just started going super long, and they were high pressing us, so we weren’t able to play our normal possession that we really played Friday. (It) kind of threw us off, and (we) made some silly decisions kind of in the second half on some things.”

Kuhar felt that the Huskies didn’t make a ton of mistakes, but when they did, they proved costly.

“They capitalized on a few of our mistakes and, and then really brought some energy,” she said. “This was a battle for kind of almost who can clinch that last spot. There’s still a little bit of things kind of fall our way, (if) we can take care of business next Saturday. Maybe we can make it still, but there was a lot of things banking on this game. That just caused some emotional side of it, and we kind of got away from our style, so that didn’t help.”

With the game tied 0-0 in the 57th minute, the Huskies were awarded a scoring chance with junior defender Allison Millina getting a penalty kick. She made a good kick, but Lakers goalkeeper Roxana Herrera made the stop. That was the last shot on goal the Huskies had in the match.

“Their goalkeeper’s good,” said Kuhar. “She made an amazing save in the first half that not a lot of goalkeepers at this level can make. I turned to our assistants when we were stepping up to take and said, ‘It has to be a really, really well placed ball or she’s going to make a save.’ I think that was a bit of a dagger to any momentum we had. If we put that in the back of the net, it’s totally different remaining part of that half.

“Allie hit a decent ball. I’ll have to look back at it, but definitely, we score that, it’s a whole different second half from there on out.”

Four minutes later, the Lakers broke through as Carisma Rosales fired a low shot that beat senior goalkeeper Ludesha Reynolds.

Twenty-eight minutes later, Rosales got behind the Huskies’ defense and beat Reynolds 1-on-1.

“Just a breakdown on our end, and, again, had them kind of all season where we had some of those breakdowns, and it happens, right? We have to be able to what we can do to kind of fix things,” Kuhar said. “The second goal was us just trying to push numbers and they got behind. But the first one, it’s savable and preventable, and we didn’t kind of achieve that.”

The Huskies did a look in between the goals, but freshman midfielder Peyton Wetzel’s shot from the high left side of the box sailed over the net.

In the first half, the Huskies put 12 shots in the direction of the Lakers’ net with four of them ending up on goal. Herrera made two strong saves in the final seven minutes of the half, the first off of freshman midfielder Karli Koskinen from the left side of the box, and the other on freshman midfielder Sophie Rater two and a half minutes later from a similar spot.

Both teams were credited with five shots on goal. Reynolds made three saves in the loss.

Up next

The Huskies have one more game at home this season, a matchup with Purdue Northwest Saturday at Kearly Stadium in Houghton.