MALIBU, California – Leyla McFarland had a goal and an assist but the #22 Pepperdine women's soccer team couldn't hold onto a pair of one-goal leads and the Waves suffered a 3-2 home defeat to Illinois on Friday afternoon.
 
Junior forward Brie Welch (Arroyo Grande, Calif./Arroyo Grande HS) opened the scoring for Pepperdine (1-1-1) in the 24th minute, but Illinois came back with a goal in the 40th minute – the first surrendered by the Waves after 240 minutes of play this season – and that evened the game at halftime.
 
McFarland (Bonita, Calif./Eastlake HS) put the Waves back in front in the 50th minute, but Illinois got goals in the 59th and 82nd minutes for the win.
 
GOALS
 
Pepperdine 24': Dribbling in from the right, McFarland centered the ball to Welch in the box. Welch was able to turn and poke the ball inside the right post for her second goal of the season.
 
Illinois 40': The Waves attempted to clear a corner kick, but only got it to the top of the box and to the feet of the Illini's Arianna Veland, who looped the ball over the crowd and the keeper for the game-tying goal.
 
Pepperdine 50': Freshman midfielder Shelby Little (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Hillcrest Christian HS) did well to win the ball on the right side and whipped in a cross, which was met on the far post by McFarland, who one-timed it home for her first goal of the season.
 
Illinois 59': The Illini's Kendra Pasquale took the ball and dribbled around for a bit before freeing herself for a shot from about 24 yards. Pepperdine goalkeeper Zoe Clevely (Huntington Beach, Calif./Edison HS) got a hand on the high, hard shot, but it deflected off the crossbar, and the ball went down and in.
 
Illinois 82': The Waves were again unable to clear the ball, and Illinois' Maggie Hillman won possession and kicked it in from 10 yards away.
 
STATS
 
Shots: Pepperdine 8, Illinois 7
Shots on Goal: Pepperdine 5, Illinois 3
Saves: Zoe Clevely (Pepperdine) 0, Jaelyn Cunningham (Illinois) 3
Corner Kicks: Pepperdine 3, Illinois 5
Fouls: Pepperdine 9, Illinois 17
Offside: Pepperdine 1, Illinois 1
 
QUOTABLE
 
Pepperdine Coach Tim Ward said: "To score two goals against a very good Illinois team, awesome. To be in the lead two different times and not see the game out, very disappointing. I love my team, but it was a really young performance in terms of not managing the game. We're going to have to learn from it. The schedule only gets tougher. Illinois was good, but we had our opportunities."
 
NOTABLE

• Pepperdine and Illinois are now 1-1 in the all-time series (the Waves won the previous meeting in 2011 at LSU).
• The last time that the Waves had scored two goals in a game and lost was 2013.

NEXT
 
Pepperdine's season-opening four-match homestand comes to an end on Sunday (Sept. 1) against #9 Vanderbilt at 1 p.m. The match will be shown on the WCC Network.