BOISE - After playing to a virtual stalemate for the first 78 minutes, Idaho's women's soccer team gave up a late goal to Northern Colorado and fell by a 1-0 score on Friday in the opening game of the Holiday Inn Classic at Boise.

"It's unusual for everyone to have an off day," Idaho head coach Pete Showler said. "You can usually get away with it if one or two girls do, but our touch was off, we weren't closing down well enough, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, and yet we were still in a position to win the game.

"I give all credit to Northern Colorado - they pressed hard and they closed us down quickly, and it caused us a lot of problems."

The Idaho (3-3) women had trouble maintaining possession throughout the day, but the defensive back line kept Northern Colorado (3-2) from creating many real scoring threats, but at the 78:08 mark, UNC's Alexsys Tamayo headed in a corner kick that proved to be the difference-maker, and a furious rally in the final 12 minutes fell show for the Vandals.

For the game, UNC outshot Idaho 16-8 and held a 6-2 advantage in shots on goal. Idaho sophomore keeper Liz Boyden played all 90 minutes in the goal and stopped five shots before the UNC header score. Freshman Chelsea Small led the team with 3 shots, while junior Jenn Hull fired off two.

Showler said that while the team was very disappointed with the result, the best thing for the Vandals is to take Friday as a learning experience and to focus on Sunday's match against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

"I have no doubts that we'll bounce back," Showler said. "It's a good learning experience - not in the nicest way, but it's a learning process and they have to realize that every game is tough.

"The positives from today are that it was just one game, it's early in the season, and it's a learning experience for everyone."

Idaho will play the Lady Lions on Sunday at 10 a.m. (PST) at the Boas Soccer Complex at Boise, Idaho.