FRESNO, Calif. – Fresno Pacific fell in its Golden Coast Conference (GCC) opener Friday night at Sunnyside Aquatics Center to #12 San Diego State, 16-3.  The Aztecs used 11 second-half goals to down the Sunbirds.
 
FPU falls to 1-7 overall and 0-1 in league play following the loss, while SDSU improves to 4-2 overall and 1-0 in conference. Since the GCC's inception last season, the Aztecs are 7-0 all-time.
 
"We played well for the first half," said head coach Bryan Suhovy. "We ran out of steam in the third quarter and San Diego St. capitalized on our mistakes. We were able to draw 12 exclusions throughout the game, but couldn't find the back of the net."
 
Down 3-0 after the first period, the Sunbirds cut the Aztec lead to a pair after Mallory Rettig fired a shot just inside the post to put FPU on the scoreboard. SDSU answered with two goals in the final five minutes of the period to lead 5-1 at the intermission.
 
The Aztecs put the game away in the second half behind a balanced scoring attack of eight different players. FPU received a third-quarter score from freshman Julia Ponce and a five-meter penalty goal from Kaitlin Fletcher in the fourth.
 
Courtney Hall finished with six stops in the cage for FPU.
 
The Aztecs received three scores from Nikole Ferrari in the win.
 
The Sunbirds host the FPU Mini Tournament tomorrow at Sunnyside Aquatics Center. FPU will face Concordia at 10 a.m. and #1 Stanford at 2:15 p.m. The tournament homepage can be found here.