CLEVELAND, OH – No. 13 University of Rochester women's soccer fell to the 4th-ranked Case Western Reserve University Spartans, 3-1, on Saturday at DiSanto Field to open University Athletic Association conference play.
 
Despite scoring first, the Spartans would score three unanswered, notching a late goal in the first half to equalize, before adding two second-half tallies to finish off the 3-1 victory to move to 1-0 in conference play and remain unbeaten on the year.
 
With the win, the Spartans move to 11-0-1 (1- UAA), while the Yellowjackets take their first loss of the year and fall to 5-1-4 (0-1 UAA).
 
The Spartans peppered Eleni McGuire with several early attempts, earning three corners in the first three minutes of the contest, and forcing McGuire to make a trio of saves.
 
Just 50 seconds in, McGuire knocked away an attempt from Alexis Sassower on a breakaway, setting up a CWRU corner, while the first-year came up with another leaping save on Julia Flynn's shot just shy of the two-minute mark of the first.
 
Rochester then defended another two corners before McGuire had to make another diving stop, this time on a rocket from Ceci Dapino in the seventh minute.
 
After drawing a pair of offsides penalties, things finally settled down for the Yellowjackets, and Natalie Santagelo put URochester's first shot on goal in the 12th minute, before finding the back of the net in the 17th.
 
Claudia Ferreira found some space in the Spartan defense, and after dribbling for nearly 30 yards, found a wide-open Santangelo, who buried a right-footed shot for her third goal of the year to give Rochester a 1-0 lead.
 
That lead would hold until the 41st minute, when the Spartans found some room to work in the UR defense. Izzy Probst found Ashley Liang with some space just outside the box, and the sophomore just beat a diving McGuire to her left to knot the score at 1-1.
 
Ava Schmidt and Sydney Holmes sent a pair of shots wide to get Rochester started, offensively, in the second half, before CWRU again put the Yellowjackets on their heels with its offensive attack.
 
Back-to-back shots from Andrea Silva and Sassower in the 59th minute went off the crossbar and then sailed high. And then in the 63rd minute, Probst helped the Spartans score again, finding Dapino in between two Rochester defenders, and then Dapino beat McGuire through her legs to give the Spartans a 2-1 lead.
 
McGuire, though, would bounce back with a pair of saves over the next five minutes, stopping a laser from Dapino in the 63rd minute, as well as a long shot from MacKenzie Mueller in the 64th.
 
Then, after Rochester's lone shot down the stretch off the foot of Hannah Nagashima was blocked, the Spartans would double their lead with just over 15 minutes left.
 
Taking advantage of a giveaway in their offensive zone, Dapino again beat McGuire, just getting the ball under the 'Jackets' first-year keeper to make it a 3-1 CWRU lead.
 
McGuire made three more saves down the stretch to prevent the Spartans from extending their lead any further, notching a career-high nine on the day, but Rochester couldn't get anything going offensively before the final buzzer sounded on CWRU's 3-1 victory.
 
Nagashima led UR offensively with two shots, tying Schmidt for a team-high two shots. For CWRU, Sassower had a game-high five shots, while Dapino scored twice, putting all four of her shots on goal.
 
The Yellowjackets will look to bounce back when they wrap up non-conference play against Alfred University on Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 6:00 p.m. in Alfred, NY.