Emilee Craighead scored Manteca’s only goal on an assist from Jenna Poncini with 4 minutes left in the game Monday night, but that was not enough to get out of a two-goal hole to visiting Venture Academy as the Mustangs held on for a 2-1 non-league girls soccer win at Guss Schmiedt Field.

For the first half of the game and into the second, the Buffaloes (0-1) were the aggressor, outshooting Venture Academy 8-1 in the first half and continuing the barrage after halftime.

“We created a lot of opportunities the first 10 minutes of the second half,” Manteca coach Justin Coenenberg said. “We created opportunities but we didn’t capitalize and when you allow a team to hang around sometimes that happens.

“The girls worked hard. I am not knocking their effort — they played hard. We just definitely have some things to improve on and I am confident we will get better.”

The game was scoreless until the 52nd minute when the Mustangs (3-1) got two goals 52 seconds apart. First, Alondra Lopez got Venture Academy on the board and before the Mustangs stopped cheering Jannes Palomares found the net again for a 2-0 lead.

Venture Academy’s strategy was to start the game slow to get a feel for things and then start running. The Mustangs had just one shot on goal in the first half and five in the second.

“We sat a little more defensive to start to get a feel of the game,” Mustangs coach Angelo Castillo said. “I knew at a certain point we could continue to run so at that point we started applying pressure and the balls went our way.”

Marissa Souza made four saves for the Buffaloes and Victoria Monroy tallied five saves for Venture Academy.