Just when it seemed that the Stars were about to record their first shutout victory of the season, Tacoma scored a late equalizer to take a share of the spoils and send the Victoria team to a 4 - 2 - 2 record.
After a hard fought first half which saw Tacoma hitting the crossbar twice, and Victoria creating solid chances only to be thwarted by an excellent string of saves by the Tacoma keeper, the second half looked at the start to be everything that the Stars could hope for. Substitute Amber Garraway for the second game in a row took advantage of a defensive miscue and chipped the ball over the Tacoma keeper and into the empty net to give Victoria a 1-0 advantage only 2 minutes into the second half. Victoria, who were missing some key players such as league scoring leader Lisa Sharp, wing back Jenn Aune, and midfeilder Bobbi Chisolm were looking to their bench to fill their spots. But, despite the shortage of players, Victoria looked worthy of pulling off another victory as they kept making foray's into the Tacoma end only to be stopped by the Pride's keeper. Tera Kasabuchi, Kelly Nicholson and Stephanie Shaw all had great games in the Victoria attack, but were not able to get the insurance marker that was so desperately needed. Another goal would surely have deflated the visitors, but credit must be given to Tacoma for not giving up and their perseverance was rewarded when with only 5 minutes remaining they levelled the score after a nice individual effort by their forward to turn 2 Victoria defenders and beat keeper Allison Dube in the lower right hand corner.
" I thought we played well enough to win this game." Stated Stars coach Lou Garraway. " They were looking to get the equalizer, and that left us with a lot of opportunities to counter attack and we found ourselves with a lot more room to play as the half wore on. It was just unfortunate that we couldn't get that second goal. We got good performances from everybody today, so I won't look at this result too negatively. I think the best is yet to come from this team but we will have to continue to battle as we head into a string of road games that takes us into August before we host Seattle and Surrey at home.'
The Stars next opponents will be second place AIA on Saturday in Langley, followed by Team BC on Sunday in Coquitlam.