DANIEL BERDANER/Arizona Daily Wildcat Sophomore Lindsey Peeples drives the ball against a San Diego defender on Sunday in Tucson. The Wildcats were shutout 3-0 Sunday, after starting the season 3-0-1.

When you play quality teams, losses might happen, especially with a young team.

The Arizona soccer team was living this example when they lost to San Diego on Sunday afternoon 3-0. The Toreros improved to 6-1-1 on the season and the Wildcats fell to 3-2-1, losing two in a row for the first time this season.

"San Diego is a good team, as good as Oklahoma was," said head coach Cathy Klein, referring to the Wildcats' 2-0 loss to the Sooners two weeks ago.

The Wildcats started the season 3-0-1 for their first four games, including two tournament wins on consecutive weekends öö until the current slide.

The offense of the Wildcats has seen an assortment of seven people put up points on nine different goals during the five games, including this game.

The Toreros lost only their first game to UCLA in their season opener and have since gone undefeated, beating Fresno State 4-2 and Long Beach State 3-0 last weekend.

The first of three strikes came from Val Strocco, when she collected a pass from Brooke Roby in the 17th minute, giving the Toreros all the cushion they would need.

The Wildcats did have several scoring opportunities, including a breakaway from last year's scoring leader, sophomore Candice Wilks, who broke through the USD defense but could not get a clean shot off in the 28th minute.

"Every day we learn something," Klein said. "We learned a lot from last week against Oklahoma."

With only three minutes left in the half, red-shirt freshman Kelly Nelson nailed the crossbar with a shot that could have tied the game right before halftime.

At the half, the Toreros left with what would be a permanent lead of 1-0.

San Diego attacked early in the second half with Brenna Mullen earning a penalty kick that was stopped by freshman goalkeeper Amanda Martin. However, the rebound was sent home by Strocco before Arizona was able to respond to the penalty kick.

It became hectic in the 63rd minute when a cluster of action resulted in a goal by Torero Michelle Rowe, sending USD up for the final score of 3-0.

The Arizona assault was lead by senior Naomi Chu who had a missile shot stopped in the 76th minute, as well as Clewett, who was denied in the 84th minute.

The Toreros racked up a 20-7 shot advantage, as well as a 14-4 shots-on-goal advantage over the Wildcats.

No one player scored two shots for the Wildcats; a different person on the team tallied all seven of their shots.

Despite a season-high 10 saves for Martin, she allowed the most goals so far this season.

After the game, the Wildcats hosted Youth Day.

Youth Day featured free team posters before and after the game, a halftime kicking competition and a post-game clinic hosted by the Arizona team.

Arizona is back on the road again this week when they play Belmont on Friday and then travel to Kentucky at 12 p.m. on Sunday.