The women?s soccer season came to a disappointing end on Thursday as the Hornets lost to the University of Montana 5-0 in the first round of the Big Sky Conference playoffs in Missoula, Montana. The hosts then went on to defeat Northern Arizona 1-0 and successively defended their conference title in the final on Saturday.

It was the first time since 1997 that Sac State made the playoffs but they couldn?t repeat its 3-2 victory over the Grizzlies earlier this month as thedefending champions proved their class.

“They (Montana) made a number of player changes from our match earlierthis season and unfortunately we didn?t have everyone step up with the intensity needed to record a victory,” Hornet head coach Sandra Asimos said.

“It was going to take all eleven players playing to their full potential to record a victory against Montana,” Asimos said. “Unfortunately, that didn?t happen like it happened a few weeks ago.”

The Grizzlies were led by Amy Schlatter, who scored two goals, as her team outshot the Hornets 18-10. Montana took a 3-0 halftime lead with goals from Kerri Houck and Heather Olson from a Robyn Turney-Loos corner kick. Schattler scored a goal in each half and Amy Wronski added one in the second half to make it 5-0. Sac State keeper Amy Seely recorded two saves while Tiffany Genovese recorded one.

“To get back to the conference playoffs was great,” Asimos acknowledged. “But this is more a building year than anything else. We have a young team and now they have a great base to work from. We?ll be back next year and we?ll be back with an even stronger game.”

The Hornets finished the season with a 9-6-2 record overall, and they were 4-3 in the Big Sky Conference.

It is the Grizzlies? third conference championship in four years but Asimos believes that the gap between them and the other teams in the conference is closing.

“All the teams are very close to each other now and that can be seen from Saturday?s result which was very close,” Asimos said. “Montana now has plenty of challenges from the other teams and everyone, including Sac State, is quickly closing the gap.”