DVC fell to 0-2 in the ultra competitive Big 8 conference after losing 2-0 Friday at home to Cosumnes River College.
The Vikings sorely missed their offensive sparkplug and leading scorer Kristen Elms, who sat out her fourth straight game after suffering a grade three ankle sprain in the game against Solano.
“There’s a good chance that she’s going to be done for the season,” said Coach Mullins, “so that’s been, offensively, a big hole to fill.”
Without Elms, the Vikings will look to Allison Nolen to carry much of the scoring load, but will also need help from her very young teammates.
Injuries have run rampant, with the team already losing starting goalkeeper, Nina Cefalo for the season, and now Elms to apparent season-ending injury.
In the game against Cosumnes, the Vikings played with two backs, Megan Ring and Ashley Greene, who were making their first starts there because of injuries to usual backs Priscilla Opfermann and Fabiola Ramirez. Opfermann is out with a fractured fibula and Ramirez has a deep quad contusion.
DVC looked to be in control early, keeping most of the action through the first 15 minutes in Cosumnes’ zone.
The Vikings also put on the pressure offensively, using Nolen’s speed to get a couple scoring opportunities, but they couldn’t put anything in the goal.
The turning point of the half may have come when DVC’s Amanda Sadri collided with the Cosumnes’ goalie and went down after an attempted breakaway pass.
“Amanda taking that hit, I think it rattled us a little bit,” Mullins said. “After that, we didn’t really bring that intensity back.”
A couple mistakes led to a goal by leading Cosumnes scorer Nydia Ramos, which put the Hawks up 1-0 with 19:53 to go in the first half.
Ramos would add another goal on a cross court pass with 36:25 remaining in the second half to put the game away.
“We just didn’t sustain a good intensity level for the full 90 minutes, and you can’t do that in the Big 8 conference,” Mullins said. “And we were rotating people through, so there really wasn’t the excuse of them getting tired.”
After losing their conference opener against Santa Rosa in a 1-0 heartbreaker; the Vikings had hoped to rebound with their home conference opener against Cosumnes River.