BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- The penalty kicks lasted 11 rounds before Emma Hinson let an attempt go off the crossbar as Point Loma advanced by winning the penalty kicks 8-7 following a 1-1 draw against Cal State East Bay on Thursday at Harrington Field in the first round of the NCAA Division II West Regional.

Point Loma is now 13-1-2 on the season with both of those ties happening on Harrington Field. The Sea Lions will next play the other team they drew against in Bellingham as they take on host Western Washington for the second time this season. Cal State East Bay, which advanced to the NCAA West Regional by winning the CCAA Championships, finishes the season with an 11-5-5 record.

Emma Thrapp scored the eighth penalty kick for Point Loma in the eleventh round to give the Sea Lions an 8-7 lead. In the tenth round, the Pioneers were just one score away from advancing, but that shot went off the crossbar. Then in a must-score situation, the exact same thing happened sending Hinson running toward the center of the field to celebrate with her teammates as the season was kept alive.

This is the third year in a row that Point Loma has reached the NCAA West Regional semifinals and the sixth time that a PacWest team has advanced in the NCAA Women's Soccer West Regional. Point Loma is now 3-3-1 in program history in the NCAA postseason. The Sea Lions reached the regional final in 2019 and played Western Washington in that match. The Vikings won that match 1-0 and the two powerhouses of the West Region will meet again on Saturday.
 
Cal State East Bay scored the first goal of the match in just the ninth minute on a shot by Riley Spitzer. Her shot from well outside the box deflected off a defender which redirected the shot just enough to get past the goalkeeper for a 1-0 lead for the Pioneers.
 
Point Loma created the majority of the scoring chances throughout the match with a total of 27 shots, 16 on goal and eight corner kicks in 110 minutes. The Sea Lions had several chances to tie the match, but Cal State East Bay’s keeper Jordan Smith kept Point Loma off the board in the first half.
 
The Sea Lions finally broke through on a free kick in the 55^th minute. Thrapp took the free kick and sent the ball perfectly in front of the mouth of the goal. Hailey Clifford jumped just high enough to change the height of the ball with her head, lifting the ball over the goalkeeper’s outstretched arms into the back of the net to tie the score.
 
For the remainder of the match, the Pioneers’ defense locked down stopping each scoring threat by the Sea Lions. Aside from a few chances that Cal State East Bay produced, the Pioneers’ seemed content to force the match into penalty kicks. After Smith made her 15th save of the match, Cal Stat East Bay got just that.
 
Point Loma went first in the penalty kicks and Smith saved the first attempt, putting all the pressure on Hinson for the remainder of the shootout. In the third round, Hinson also made a save to even the score at 2-2, moving to her right to stop a low shot.
 
After six rounds, the score was tied 5-5 in the shootout when Point Loma missed a shot. The Pioneers need to make just one more penalty kick to advance, but the Pioneers also missed as Hinson let the shot go outside the post.
 
Both teams traded goals in the eighth and ninth rounds with Olivia Shaw and Naomi Ellis both scoring for Point Loma to make the shootout score 7-7. In the tenth round, Smith made her second save of the shutout to again put Cal State East Bay one goal away from advancing. Again, needing a save to keep her team’s season alive, Hinson allowed the Pioneers’ tenth-round shot hit off the crossbar. The tie was finally broken in the 11^th round with Thrapp scoring into the upper-left corner after Smith guessed correctly. The final attempt from Cal State East Bay again hit the crossbar keeping Point Loma’s season alive.
 
This was only the second time in PacWest history that a team went to penalty kicks in the NCAA West Regional and the first time a PacWest team won. Point Loma and Western Washington are the only two teams in the West Region to have reached the semifinals or better of the NCAA West Regional in each of the last three seasons.