After a fast start for the Sacramento State men’s soccer team, the Hornets weren’t able to capitalize on multiple scoring opportunities late in the game, as they lost 2-1 to CSU Northridge at Hornet Field on Saturday evening.

The loss drops the Hornets to 4-7-1 overall and 1-3-0 in Big West Conference play.

It was the Hornets’ first home loss, as they went 2-0-1 before Saturday.

“We hate losing in front of our home crowd,” said Sac State midfielder Ivan Ramirez. “It wasn’t our day today, they were the better team.”

Sac State’s fast start began with a Brad Bumgarner goal in the second minute. It was the freshman’s fourth goal of the season.

The Hornets continued applying offensive pressure after Bumgarner’s goal, but missed multiple shots by Ramirez and midfielder Trevor Jackson, who narrowly missed the goal wide left in the first half.

With a 1-0 halftime lead for Sac State, the Matadors came out strong with a David Turicos goal in the 46th minute.

In the 63rd minute, Turicos scored his second goal of the game to put the Matadors up 2-1.

With 10 minutes to play, the Hornets had multiple chances to tie the game including a missed wide-open shot by Bumgarner.

“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t tie it,” said Bumgarner on his missed goal.

With less than five minutes left to play, the Hornets narrowly missed multiple shots after a corner kick by Jackson.

By being in last place in the Big West North Division standings, Sac State coach Michael Linenberger said the team has a lot of work to do moving forward.

“We got a mountain to climb now in the division to try and qualify for post season,” Linenberger said.

The Hornets’ next six games will be against teams in the north division, starting with UC Santa Barbara at home on Wednesday.

Linenberger said the upcoming six games will be tough competition for the Hornets.

“We got UC Santa Barbara twice and for me they’re the best team in the conference and one of the top 20 teams in country,” Linenberger said. “We got Cal Poly twice, I think they’re very good as well and then you have [UC] Davis twice, which is our rival. So [it’s] six very difficult games, but we got to find a way [to win].”

Wednesday’s matchup is slated for a 4 p.m. start time and Sac State will then travel to play causeway rival UC Davis on Saturday Oct. 17.