The Bulldogs con­cluded their reg­u­lar sea­son Saturday, falling to the nation­ally ranked Grand Valley State University Lakers, 6–0.

The Bulldogs faced a tough chal­lenge play­ing GVSU in its own ter­ri­tory as the Lakers have not let any team score on them at home dur­ing the entire sea­son. GVSU was also ranked 9^th in the NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer Midwest Region.

GVSU imme­di­ately took the lead in the first half scor­ing the first goal of the game a lit­tle over two min­utes in. The Lakers would score two more goals in the first half to end the first period 3–0, leav­ing the Bulldogs trail­ing going into the sec­ond half.

Well into the sec­ond half, the Bulldogs remained score­less and the Lakers scored three more goals to run up the score to 6–0 to put the game out of reach and seal the loss for the Bulldogs. Sophomore Cassie Aro, fresh­man Amanda Foster and seniors Kristen March and Megan Stec all had shots on the goal with all being blocked by GVSU goal­keeper, Chelsea Parise.

“Grand Valley was rough, but we stuck together as a team,” said fresh­man Laurel Rapson. “Now we just have the GLIAC tour­na­ment to focus on and win the GLIAC title.” n

The Bulldogs ended their reg­u­lar sea­son 7−8−3 over­all and 7−6−2 in the GLIAC stand­ings. They will pre­pare for the first round of the GLIAC tour­na­ment that began on Tuesday. Coverage for the GLIAC tour­na­ment will be in next week’s issue of The Torch.