Box Score TACOMA, Wash. — Kyleigh Archer tallied her second goal of the season on Saturday as the nine-time defending Northwest Conference Champion Pacific Lutheran University women's soccer squad earned a 1-1 draw against Azusa Pacific University at East Field.

"We're really proud of our team. Azusa Pacific is an excellent team, so we knew it was going to be a hard game. We told the team that 11 warriors will always beat 11 artists, so let's be warriors, and they battled and defended well. This game proved we have some toughness in us and can suffer," said Head Coach Seth Spidahl.

The Lutes (2-1-1) drew first blood with Archer scoring unassisted in the 18th minute. PLU led at the break, despite being outshot 9-1 and held on to the lead until the Cougars' (2-0-2) Emily Cherry tallied an equalizer in the 79th minute. The APU goal snapped PLU's streak of 689 minutes without conceding a home goal, a streak spanning across eight home games. The Lutes last allowed a goal at East Field on Sept. 24, 2025, a 1-1 stalemate against archrival University of Puget Sound.

It was a busy night in goal for Mia Speir who turned away seven shots on the afternoon against a Cougar team that was an NCAA Division II Sweet 16 team a season ago and is in their first year transitioning to NCAA Division III. 

"Had a great goal from Kyleigh. Mia had a great game in goal and we had some good team defending. Sometimes you've just got to get through games like this, so hopefully its good preparation for the future if we make the NCAA Tournament. We ended non-conference play 2-1-1 which is perfect. We had some success, and we had some struggles, and now we're looking forward to a couple days off then getting ready to open up conference play at home."

Pacific Lutheran opens its NWC title defense next Saturday, hosting Pacific University at East Field. Kickoff is slated for 2:45 p.m.