TURLOCK — For the 10th ranked Stanislaus State Warriors, there were many great scoring opportunities ended up in the hands of Azusa Pacific goalkeeper Sarah Klinkenberg. In the end, the visiting Cougars challenged the defending West Region champions in the Warrior Challenge at Warrior Stadium Thursday night.

Mayra Almazan capitalized on her scoring chance in the 34th minute to account for the match's only goal as Azusa Pacific upset host Stanislaus State, 1-0, with its physical style of play.

"It was a well played match by two very good teams. Azusa made a few more plays than we did tonight," Stanislaus head coach Gabriel Bolton said.

APU's goal came from a Mikaela Truckey service into the box that went off of a defender to allow Almazan to collect the ball and blasted to the far left post past a diving Chelsea Lewandowski.

But Lewandowski's counter-part, Klinkenberg, came up with a number of fantastic saves to keep the Warriors' prolific offense off the scoreboard. There was a diving stop of a Mikayla Clifford attempt in the 26th minute. Then in the 43rd minute, she guess correctly and picked up a Jordan Moineau penalty kick try that would have even the score at one apiece. In the final minute, after a mad scramble at close range, Klinkenberg somehow saw a Kirsten Coleman point-blank attempt through traffic to preserve the win.

Even when Klinkenberg seemingly made a mistake, APU prevailed. In the 22nd minute in the first half, Klinkenberg came out to greet a charging Coleman, but a Cougar defender slipped behind the play to save Coleman's close-range shot.

Lewandowski had the save of the night, though. The senior goalkeeper perfectly timed an Allyn Brown 25-yard blast with a leaping slap to tip the ball over the crossbar to keep the match at 1-0.

"I was really happy with our play over all. We competed very well against an excellent team," added Bolton. "We just need to finish our chances."

Showing the early season success of the Stanislaus program, Thursday night's season-opening defeat was just the first since 1998 — the institution's first season as a CCAA member. They had gone 14-0-2 since.

Fresno Pacific defeated Cal State East Bay in an earlier tournament match with a 2-0 score. FPU got goals from Alyssa Nakaguchi and Hannah Coyle.

The event continues on Saturday with two more contests with East Bay taking on Azusa Pacific at 11:30 a.m. The Warriors host Fresno Pacific later that night at 7 p.m.