Box Score PLYMOUTH, WIS. – The Alverno soccer team played in its first game since late October of the fall 2019 season, opening up with the Lakeland Muskies on Taylor Field in Sheboygan County. The Inferno comeback fell just shy as the Muskies hung on for a 3-2 win.
 
Junior Verania Ortiz highlighted the offensive effort for Alverno, scoring her first two NCAA collegiate goals for the Inferno, including a penalty kick goal for the first Inferno marker of the season. She later took a pass late in the opening half from freshman Sofia McLaughlin to trim the deficit two one, as McLaughlin registered her first intercollegiate point.
 
Defensively, sophomore Kenzie Bermudez made two saves on the contest, as she yielded the three first-half Muskie tallies.
 
All of the scoring was done in the first half, as the two sides battled to a scoreless draw in the final 45 minutes. Alverno held the advantage in shots at 12-9, and in shots on goal at 11-5.
 
McLaughlin and junior Shaye Wolfe led Alverno with four shots apiece, while Ortiz and sophomore Sami Martinez each had two shots apiece. In their collegiate debuts Alondra Guadarrama and Nia Brittain played the full 90 minutes, as did Bermudez, McLaughlin, Wolfe, Ortiz, junior Angela Chobanian and sophomore Faith Josko.
 
Lakeland opened the game with a shot in the first minute that was denied by Bermudez, before Martinez recorded Alverno's first shot of the season in the fifth minute. Lakeland scored the game's opening goal in the 17th minute, before adding a second strike just four minutes later. The Muskies took a three-goal lead with a penalty kick strike in the 28th minute to take a three-goal advantage.
 
Alverno got the offense firing in the 37th minute as McLaughlin connected on a shot that was saved. Off the rebound, Lakeland was called for a foul and Alverno was awarded a penalty kick, which Ortiz converted on to give the Inferno its first goal of the season.
 
Minutes later Alverno was awarded another penalty kick but was unable to convert as the save was made by the Muskie netminder.
 
In the closing minutes of the opening half, McLaughlin found Ortiz, who found the back of the net for the second time on the game as Alverno trimmed the lead to one heading into the intermission.
 
Alverno had several chances, including back-to-back corner kicks by Wolfe in the 53rd and 54th minutes, while Wolfe also had shots in the 60th and 62nd minutes but was denied. McLaughlin put one more shot for the Inferno on frame in the 79th minute, but the team was unable to convert as the Muskies escaped with the one-goal victory.
 
Alverno (0-1, 0-1 NACC North) will be back in action this Wednesday, when the team visits Edgewood for a league tilt beginning at 4 p.m. from Edgewood's new Reddan Soccer Park Field in Verona, Wisconsin, just outside the Madison-based college.