CEDAR CITY, Utah – The Southern Utah University women's soccer team opened the home slate for all of SUU Athletics Thursday afternoon but fell to UNLV, 3-0, at Thunderbird Soccer Field.

The loss dropped SUU to 1-2-0 on the season while UNLV improved to 2-1-0.

"We got better today, which is scary, but we got better," said SUU head coach Kai Edwards. "By halftime we had nine players in our regular rotation out for whatever reason, and then we looked up and saw four of our freshman players in their third-ever college game doing exactly what was asked of them. I felt it was our best possession of the year. We created chances that we need to finish, but we played better than we did Sunday. There's no moral victories, but we did get better today."

Hailey Hamataka and Kate Schirmer led the Thunderbird attack with two shots apiece while Evi Anderson and Julia Hunt each added one. Jennifer Kovisto made five saves in goal and was replaced by Emma Rodgers in the match's final moments who did not face a shot.

The Rebels claimed a 15 to six advantage in shots and earned six corners to Southern Utah's three. The T-Birds did finish the night committing fewer fouls than UNLV with only nine compared to seven.

SUU will look to rebound on Tuesday, August 31, when it welcomes UC San Diego to Cedar City. The match is scheduled for a Noon MT kickoff with live stats available on SUUTBirds.com.

"UC San Diego is a very good team," said Edwards. I think if our players do what we ask them to do, we will be successful. If we change things, they will get confused and won't trust it. I trust what we are trying to do, so we won't change too much. We will just try to do it better than we did today."

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