NIAGARA, N.Y. – The UMass Lowell women's soccer team (0-1-0) could not complete the comeback and fell, 2-1, on the road to Niagara (1-0-0) during the season opener on Thursday night. 
 
"I think we played a good game," commented Head Coach Mira Novak. "We're still far away from playing our full potential, but I think we controlled the ball well in the first-half and created enough shots and chances."
 
Five minutes into the first half and Niagara struck first with a one-timer to the bottom left corner from 25 yards out by Madison Laudeman.
 
Courtney Coleman (Antioch, Ill.) answered by sending a cross-pass from 15 yards to Lily Fabian (Monson, Mass.) who was then able to knock a header off the top of the cross bar, equalizing the score 1-1.
 
"Unfortunately we went down early 1-0, but we fought back and got on the board," stated Novak.
 
Going into the second half tied at 1-1, the Purple Eagles were able to notch the only goal of the second, when Kelsey Araujo received a cross-pass and was able to one-touch the ball, bringing the final score to 2-1.
 
"In the second half I'm not really sure what happened, but a few individual mistakes in the back, and we were down 2-1," stated Novak. "We were chasing the game which was hard against a solid team like Niagara."

In her first action since 2018, goalkeeper Lauren Huff (Brandon, Fla.) recorded two saves.
 
Kristin Birgisdottir (Mosfellsbaer, Iceland) and Hildur Gunnarsdottir (Reykjavik, Iceland) recorded shots on target for UMass Lowell in the second half, but could not cut into the deficit.

UMass Lowell heads out on the road for a contest against Boston College on August 25. This will be the first meeting of the two programs.