3-1-7, 1-1-0
UC San Diego
2-5-4, 0-2-0
Smith, Halladay Dominate as Cal Poly Earns First Big West Win
9/25/2025 10:30:00 PM | Women's Soccer
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Junior forward Annika Smith tallied a goal and an assist and senior forward Jessie Halladay buried her Big West-leading sixth goal of the season as the Cal Poly women’s soccer team secured a 2-0 home victory over UC San Diego on Thursday night.
The win was the Mustangs’ first in Big West play and allowed them to remain unbeaten (1-0-4) at Mustang Memorial Field Presented by Dignity Health French Hospital this season.
“It feels amazing,” Smith said after the match about the team earning its first home win. “We’ve been working so hard to get this win so I’m super happy to walk away with three points at home … Thursday night’s at Spanos are the best.”
Through two of 10 total Big West matches, Cal Poly (3-1-7, 1-1-0 BW) is currently tied with two other teams for fourth place in the conference table with 3 points.
“Huge three points,” Silva said. “We tied our first four home games, we got pretty close to winning a couple of those, but the ball just wasn’t quite bouncing our way and today I thought it did. We worked really hard to also deserve some of the luck we got … I’m really proud of the resilience of the team in the first half and then the attitude shift in the second half I thought was fantastic.”
The Mustangs got off to a slow start in the match, but Cal Poly’s top two offensive threats were able to generate a pair of dangerous chances in the opening half. In the 15th minute, Halladay was able to track down a long ball behind the Triton backline and nearly fired a shot past the UCSD goalkeeper. And then just a few minutes later, Smith blasted a blistering shot just wide of the right post.
Cal Poly only generated five shots in the opening 45 minutes, but turned up the heat in the second half.
In the 53rd minute, senior midfielder Madelyn Dougherty fired a shot on net that was saved by the UCSD keeper, but Smith crashed the net and was able to bury the rebound to give Cal Poly a 1-0 lead. It was Smith’s fourth goal of the season, while Dougherty grabbed her sixth assist, tied for the most in the Big West this year.
The Mustangs weren’t satisfied with just one goal and continued to press forward in hopes of finding another, and in the 59th minute they did. Sophomore midfielder Kiki Vostermans headed a ball forward toward the right side of the box where Smith picked up the ball, sliced through multiple UCSD defenders and fed a perfect pass toward the top of the penalty kick spot. From there, Halladay did the rest, rocketing a shot to the top left corner of the net to double Cal Poly’s lead.
It was Halladay’s sixth goal in her nine match of the season, and the 15th goal of her career.
The two goals were enough as Cal Poly staved off the Tritons (2-5-4, 0-2-0 Big West) down the stretch. With her performance Thursday, Smith now has 10 points on the year (four goals, two assists) while Halladay has a Big West high 14 points (six goals, two assists). The duo was responsible for eight of Cal Poly’s 15 shots on Thursday, and they are proving to be a dangerous combo on the pitch.
“We’re talking about two of the best forwards in the conference,” Silva said. “They’re a dynamic duo, and this year we’ve brought them closer together to combine and work off of each other. They’ve put so much work into building their relationship, not just on the field, but off the field.”
Redshirt freshman goalkeeper Shannon Porubski made four saves to secure her third clean sheet of the season.
“I mean [this match] is definitely a confidence booster,” Smith said, “but we can’t be satisfied with this because we can play so much better than what we did.”
Cal Poly caps off the week by visiting UC Davis for a 1 p.m. match on Sunday. The match will be streamed live on ESPN+.
“Every game in the Big West is a battle,” Silva said, “and we got to continue to learn as a team that ugly wins, beautiful wins, they all count the same, and so I didn’t think today was the prettiest game for us. I didn’t think we played the best game, but it doesn’t matter, we got three points and that’s really important for us as a team to understand that.”
Team Stats
Annika Smith (4)
Assisted By: Madelyn Dougherty
GOAL by CP Smith, Annika Assist by Dougherty, Madelyn.
52:55
Jessie Halladay (6)
Assisted By: Annika Smith
GOAL by CP Halladay, Jessie Assist by Smith, Annika.
58:10
