Arizona soccer completes comeback win over Iowa State

It was a night of comebacks for Arizona soccer. On the night junior forward Quincy Bonds returned from injury, the Wildcats came back against the visiting Iowa State Cyclones for the 2-1 victory on opening night. Bonds played a key role, firing her team up and scoring Arizona’s first goal.

“I was totally fired up and ready to get back on the pitch after a couple months of not being out here,” Bonds said. “And it’s just been so much fun working with my teammates. They’re my best friends. They’re my family. And so we come out here and we want to do the best we can for each other, and we want to make this season really memorable for all of us.”

It should have been easier than that. In a chippy game that had two yellow cards on the Wildcats and both a yellow and a red card on the Cyclones, ISU was down a player before the 29th minute.

“We knew coming into this,” Bonds said. “During our scout, we knew that they were going to be a physical team. We knew that they were going to bump us, but we said before the game, ‘If they’re gonna bump us, we’re going to bump them back.’ And so we knew it was gonna be a physical game. We knew it was gonna get like that and so we came in prepared.”

Even with just 10 players, the Cyclones were the first to draw blood. Jasmine Colbert put a ball in the bottom left of the net off the assist by Mira Emma in the 48th minute. Arizona needed to find the wherewithal to come back.

“We should win once they got that red card,” Moros said. “That puts a little pressure on you. And I think when we went down, we were able to keep fighting and pushing, and getting a lot of attacking chances, and get a couple goals in the end.”

The Wildcats had almost a full half to try to get the goal back. As they had in the first half, they controlled possession, but they had difficulty breaking through with a goal. ISU goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz turned back one attempt after another.

UA ended the night with 18 shots. Seven of them were on goal but just not quite good enough.

Arizona finally equalized in 80:51 on the clock. The goal was originally called an own goal, but upon further review was credited to Bonds.

Was the game going to end in a tie? It was entirely possible. Beginning this season, regular-season matches do not have overtime. After 90 minutes, matches are declared ties if the score is equal. Overtime is only held in postseason games.

In the end, Arizona got a little help from Iowa State. The Cyclones knocked one into their own net on the corner kick by freshman Sami Baytosh, giving Baytosh the assist on the own goal.

The Wildcats now travel to Lubbock, Tex. to take on Texas Tech. The game will be held at 5 p.m. MST on Sunday, Aug. 21. It airs on ESPN+.

UPDATE: This story has been updated with information about who scored Arizona’s first goal. It was initially scored an own goal. Later, it was changed to Madison Goerlinger, then finally assigned to Bonds.