First-place Vaqueros edge Cuesta 2-1

Sandy Grimaldo and Aimee Ryan scored first-half goals and SBCC held on for a 2-1 women's soccer victory over Cuesta on Tuesday afternoon at La Playa Stadium.

The Vaqueros (6-3-3, 3-0-2) remained in first place in the WSC North. They improved to 3-0 at home and are unbeaten in their last six games (4-0-2). They've outscored their five conference opponents 18-3.

Santa Barbara outshot the visitors 29-5, including 17-2 in shots on goal. Cuesta goalie Michaela Lewis made 12 saves and Cougar defenders kept three more shots out of the net.

In the 35th minute, Grimaldo sliced through two defenders and beat the goalie to the lower left for a 1-0 lead. Ryan, who came off the bench and hit the post in the 26th minute, made it 2-0 one minute before halftime after taking a long free kick from Hannah Martin.

"Hannah did a nice job of floating the ball over the defense," said Ryan, a freshman from Pleasanton. "I took a step ahead of everyone and read it, then took a touch and finished."

The Vaqueros had numerous opportunities to score.

"Personally, it's frustrating to miss a ton of opportunities like that," said Ryan. "It gets me down because I feel like we could have won by a lot more if I had made some of those shots. But you can't get too down about it. We just have to get better at finishing."

Cuesta (6-5-2, 1-2-2) cut the deficit in half in the 58th minute when Karolina Rendon grabbed a turnover and lobbed the ball over SBCC goalie Karin Nordin.

"We couldn't finish today for some reason," said Vaquero coach John Sisterson. "We had players competing well but when they got in front of the goal, they seem to fall apart. I told them to focus, don't lose your composure and just put the ball in the back of the net.

"We played well enough to win by a convincing margin. But we did win the game, got the three points and we're still in first place. We have a big game on Friday night."

The Vaqueros travel to Ventura for a key WSC contest on Friday at 6 p.m.