Wayne State opened its regular season last week going 1-1-1 over three games. WSC played Augustana to a 1-1 tie after two overtimes last Thursday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

After a scoreless first half, junior forward Christina Stasi put WSC on the board with a shot from the right side of the box off a pass from Carleigh Wilson. With just over 10 minutes left, the Vikings tied the game at one, off a goal from Samantha Tymkowicz.

“Tying Augustana to start our conference season was a good result, especially as they will be one of the top teams in the conference when it is all said and done,” Head Coach Joe Cleary said.

The Cats had the final chance to steal the game in the final minutes when a shot off a free kick by Alexis Strothers hit the crossbar sending the game into overtime. Wayne State held the shot advantage in the first overtime 2-1, but was outshot 5-0 in the second overtime. Brooke Buzzell, Hannah Knight, Shelby Bullard and Rachel Fraser were credited with shots on goal. Sophomore Rachel Grisham made nine saves while allowing one goal in her collegiate debut.

“The staff gave the team the game plan, and full credit to the players for working hard and executing that game plan really well,” Cleary said.

WSC lost to Colorado Christian 4-2 in the home opener on Sunday. CCU opened up the scoring 22 minutes off a Mollie Monson strike. With just over five minutes left in the first half, Bryana Garcia found the back of the net off a shot from the left side of the box to make the score 1-1 going into halftime.

The Cougars scored first four minutes into the second half when Monson scored her second goal off a corner which she headed past the WSC goalkeeper. WSC came from behind again as Buzzell scored in the 62nd minute tying the game 2-2. It took CCU just 29 seconds to take the lead back, off of a 20 yard blast from Alyssa Regalado. Renee De La Torre took any hopes of WSC getting a result from the game as she added an insurance goal in the 84th minute giving the Cougars the 4-2 victory.

“We didn’t play our game, and we didn’t play at the level I think we expect from ourselves,” Cleary said. “We did manage to come from behind twice, so it was good to see our resiliency. We just shot ourselves in the foot one too many times.”

Wayne State got on the winning foot last Monday, beating Black Hills State 5-0. This also marked Cleary’s first win as a head coach.

Knight scored her first goal of the season nine minutes in. Minutes before half time WSC tacked on two more goals from Knight and Megan Schuster, making the score 3-0 going into the half. Madison Burgard and Bullard scored second-half goals to give WSC the 5-0 win.

“It’s always hard to play back-to-back games in two days, especially coming off a loss. I thought we gave a good account of ourselves against Black Hills State. We were working on some attacking patterns in practice, and got those to click during the game,” Cleary said.

WSC will conclude its non-conference schedule Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. at St. Ambrose University.