In NCAA Tournament soccer, all it takes is one lapse of concentration, one error, and your season is over.

BYU’s defense had one of those lapses in the 70th minute of Friday’s first round match against former West Coast Conference rival Santa Clara at South Field, and predictably, it cost them.

With the score deadlocked at 0-0, the Cougar defense failed to mark up on the Broncos’ Tori Powell, and she had clear view of the goal as she blasted a shot from 25 yards to the top right of the net past the outstretched hands of BYU goalkeeper Lynette Hernaez.

It was Santa Clara’s only shot of the second half, but it was the only one it would need.

“It felt like that goal came out of nowhere,” Cougar freshman midfielder Mika Krommenhoek said. “It obviously hurt a little bit. We just really felt like we had one (a goal) coming. We had attack after attack. But I think one thing about this team is even after we went down, we were still able to keep that attack going and that’s something that will be huge for us in the future, just maintaining that grit, not matter the score our who we’re facing on the field.”

With 20 minutes to play, the Cougars searched for the equalizer and had several dangerous chances, including a moment where they appeared to have scored a goal in the final two minutes, a hard shot from Krommenhoek that bounced away from the Santa Clara goalkeeper, off the foot of Avery Frischknecht and into the goal. The play ignited the 2,497 Cougar fans at South Field But the score was disallowed because of an offside call.

Santa Clara, which had allowed just 16 goals in 19 matches this season, kept the zero up on the scoreboard.

“Obviously, this is a very tough loss for us on South Field tonight,” BYU coach Jennifer Rockwood said. “It wasn’t our best overall performance but I felt that we still did enough to at least put one in the back of the net. In the second half, particularly, we had some really good opportunities. We only gave up one shot in the second half, and unfortunately, that was the one that got us. We’ve had to play through a lot of injuries and that has forced us to move a lot of players around. It’s the youngest BYU team that we’ve ever had, and for them to finish fourth in the Big 12, finish ranked in one of the polls and hosting an NCAA tournament game, I’m really proud of our team and the players and how hard they worked through a lot of adversity.”

The Broncos (13-3-4) will play at No. 2 seed North Carolina in next week’s second round. The Tarheels opened the 2024 NCAA Tournament with an 8-0 thrashing of USC-Upstate.

The Cougars outshot the Broncos 15-13 and had four shots on goal to the opponents three while earning eight corner kicks to Santa Clara’s five.

The first 45 minutes ended deadlocked at 0-0, though both team created good chances to break onto the scoreboard. BYU’s Allie Fryer got dangerous, twice penetrating the Santa Clara 18-yard line with the ball but each time was turned away by goalkeeper Marlee Nicolos. The Broncos kept the Hernaez, alert as well with several threatening trips into the scoring third. Santa Clara put on a flurry off offensive attacks in the final five minutes of the half. Leading scorer Kennedy Schoennauer got a free look from the side when he defender fell down but the shot went wide. The Broncos also sent a shot that caromed off the crossbar and BYU survived the late push.

Erin Bailey’s hard work in the box resulted in BYU corner kick in the 62nd minute. Later in the possession, Bailey spun around a defender and had good low shot that Powell smothered. Twice Santa Clara defenders helped out their goalkeeper by kicking away big opportunities for BYU inside the goal box.

Santa Clara now leads the overall series with the Cougars 10-3-7.

BYU ends its season with a record of 9-7-5. Cougar coach Jennifer Rockwood, who completed her 32nd season at the helm of the women’s soccer program, returns her entire starting lineup for 2025 and adds redshirt sophomore Ellie Walbuch, a starter on the 2023 NCAA semifinal team that missed this season due to a knee injury.