After a historic start to the season, the Fort Lewis women’s soccer team has not found of the back of the net over the last four matches – the latest being Thursday night in a 2-0 loss to fifth-ranked Colorado Mesa.

“We’re going to get there,” Fort Lewis coach Damian Clarke said. “This is a much better team than its been in a long time. Sure, I’m a little discouraged but we’ll go to battle on Sunday.”

Colorado Mesa improved to 10-0-1 overall and 5-0-1 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. Fort Lewis fell to 5-2-5 overall and 1-2-3 in RMAC play. The Skyhawks have gone 0-2-2 since Oct. 1.

“This was the third top 25 team in a row we played so it was a lot for a young team like this, especially for a team that’s trying to play fútbol and not be pragmatic and conservative to preserve a result,” Clarke said. “We’re trying to win games, man, and sometimes you’re going to suffer learning how to be better.”

Colorado Mesa outshot Fort Lewis 26-12, including 13 shots on goal compared to Fort Lewis’ three shots on goal.

It took Colorado Mesa 40 minutes to finally break through the Skyhawks’ defense. Abby Fotheringham put in a ball toward goal, and Tatum Pfalmer headed it in to make the score 1-0.

Mavericks forward Mira Houck delivered the second goal in the 56th minute with a penalty kick.

“That’s disappointing for sure to not have scored a goal,” Clarke said. “But you look at this game, it’s two set pieces that beat us. So at the end of the day, we didn’t get beat in the run of play. We had plenty of opportunities. You saw plenty of those opportunities in the last 20 minutes. On a different day, there’s a chance there’s two goals for us in the run of play versus set pieces.”

bkelly@durangoherald.com