Staff photo / Preston Byers Boardman’s Lainey Beadle (left) defends Canfield’s Lorieona Jannone, who gets set to cross the ball into the Cardinals’ box during Monday’s home match vs. the Spartans.

CANFIELD — Costly errors proved to be the difference during Monday’s All-American Conference girls soccer opener between Canfield and Boardman.

Despite several opportunities, the Spartans could not score Monday and had to instead retrieve the ball out of their own net three times in a 3-0 conference road loss.

Boardman head coach Derek Patterson said he was very proud of his team’s performance regardless of the final result.

“Even though we didn’t get the outcome that we wanted, we still played 100%,” said Patterson, who lamented some of the Spartans’ missed opportunities.

In the opening minutes of the match, Boardman dominated possession and put pressure on Canfield’s defense. However, a foul on the left side of the box during a Cardinals attack cost the Spartans dearly.

Canfield took the lead on a Lexi Torporcer penalty kick nearly eight minutes in, and about nine minutes later, Lena Wahib put one through the legs of Boardman goalkeeper Aseel Mousa.

After each of the goals, Patterson’s message could be heard clearly.

“It wasn’t earned,” he said.

Before the first goal, the head official called a foul that was unpopular with the Boardman sideline. So when Patterson said it after the second goal, which came following a Canfield corner kick, the official ran over to Patterson and showed him a yellow card.

While the referee obviously felt differently, Patterson said his “earned” comment was directed at his own players, not the officials.

“I give pregame speeches. I was like, ‘Hey, just to let you know: there are earned goals and there are goals that aren’t earned.’ I felt like we were playing good defense. So I just wanted to reiterate that to them. That one wasn’t earned, continue to fight. And he took it the wrong way. It is what it is,” Patterson said.

Patterson said that he believes his team plays better when they know he is standing up for them, which may have been the case in the second half.

While trailing 2-0, Boardman, which struggled with turnovers and putting together consistent attacks throughout the match, finally applied consistent pressure on Canfield goalkeeper Lauren Padgett and the Cardinals’ defense.

Despite the much-improved ball movement and a few shots on goal, the Spartans came up empty in each of their attacks, and instead watched another miscue lead to a Canfield goal.

Lexi Toporcer scored her second goal of the night off of an assist by Halle Toporcer after a corner kick slipped through Mousa’s hands with less than three minutes remaining.

Following the match, Canfield coach Phil Simone characterized his team’s performance as “sloppy.”

“Boardman kind of took us out of our normal game,” Simone said. “We didn’t possess as much as we would like, got a little bit frantic. So today, I think they just took us out of our game. We couldn’t get that composure back.”

Boardman (3-3-2, 0-1-0), which had won three consecutive matches and not lost since Aug. 21, will play Warren G. Harding at home Wednesday in another AAC match.

Canfield (5-1-0, 1-0-0) will visit Howland for the Cardinals’ first road conference match of the season.

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