The DVC women’s soccer team was resigned Thursday to a tie in the final seconds of stoppage play. 

Conference-leading Santa Rosa was not.  

Goal keeper Courtney Hart advanced out of the net to stop the charging Santa Rosa offense, but could not come up with the ball on a diving save attempt, and the Bear Cubs knocked it in with less than 30 seconds to go, toppling the Vikings 4-3 in DVC’s last game of the season.  

“My first reaction was just shock,” Jenna Simone said. “We had all the momentum, but after that we were just determined to try and get it back.”

Three second-half goals by DVC and a one-goal lead with 17:52 remaining wasn’t enough, and for the second game in a row the Vikings came up disappointed.  

With the loss the Vikings fall to 10-8-2 on the year with a 6-6-2 in conference play.  

Their game Tuesday against Modesto ended in a similar fashion, with the Vikings surrendering a one-goal lead with just over eight minutes to go, ending with a 3-3 tie.  

Santa Rosa grabbed a 2-0 lead with 25 minutes to go in the game after tallying two goals in five minutes.   

The lead quickly evaporated, as DVC got on the board one minute later when Simone, set up a header from Liz Sanchez, cut the lead to 2-1.  

Within two minutes, Sanchez scored another goal off of another assist from Simone after a yellow card on Santa Rosa and tied the game 2-2.  

But the offense wasn’t finished. 

Leading scorer Kristen Elms kicked home Simone’s third assist of the game to give DVC the lead 3-2 with 17:52 to go.  

“It was almost like the two goals didn’t effect them,” head coach Cailin Mullins said.  “They didn’t act like they were down when we came out at halftime.”

But the Vikings held the lead for all of 52 seconds before Santa Rosa scored off of a corner kick to even the score.  

“Coming back from being down 2-0 to the No. 1 team in the Big 8 shows our team’s talent and determination,” Elms said. “We never gave up…which is why we did so well, even though we ended up losing in the last few minutes.”

With her three-assists, Simone added to her team-leading total of 12 on the year.   

The first half was a defensive struggle, with Hart making numerous saves, including two jumping grabs off of Santa Rosa corner kicks, to preserve a 0-0 tie going into halftime.  

Most of the action in the first half action was on DVC’s end of the field, but the momentum switched when the Vikings came into the second half more aggressively and forced the action.  

“We knew Santa Rosa was a good team, but we had a good talk at halftime,” Elms said  

Elms has scored a goal in four straight games and six of the last seven, totaling a team-leading 19 goals for the season.  

“I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the support from my team,” Elms said. “Most of my shots come from their good passes.”

DVC tumbles down the Northern California rankings to no. 15, with 16 teams making the playoffs. The Vikings are on the bubble of the playoff picture and will have to wait to learn their fate.  

“The loss really makes us hungry going into playoffs,” Simone said. “We are just going to go out and play a full 90 minutes and show we can beat these teams.”

Though the Vikings are headed for a lower seed in the playoffs their spirits remain high and the team is staying positive. 

“Being a very low seed for playoffs is a great thing for a team like ours,” Priscilla Opfermann said. “We get a chance to prove that we can play with the high caliber teams.”