Andrew Huse / Staff Photographer

Returning to your old stomping grounds is no easy task.

Old friends show up and good memories pop back into your head. But for San Diego State’s women’s soccer head coach, one thing makes the trip harder than most.

Your old team wants to stomp you.

On Sunday night, SDSU headed into Harder Stadium to take on Mike Friesen’s ex-team, UCSB, and left in a 2-1 heartbreaker.

Friesen coached the Gauchos for five years, but the excitement of playing against his former team quickly turned into agony as the Aztecs suffered a 2-1 double-overtime loss.

“It’s disappointing to get a loss, especially in overtime,” Friesen said. “We didn’t necessarily play our best half of soccer the first half of the game.”

UCSB (3-3-2) struck early as forward Brooke Salyer buried a shot past freshman goalkeeper Aubree Southwick in the first eight minutes of the game. But SDSU responded in the second half when senior co-captain and midfielder Jessica Girdner beat a defender and took a shot from about 25 yards out for her first goal of the year.

“It was a big goal,” Friesen said. “We got a turnover, and (Girdner) was in a good spot offensively. It was an unbelievable shot.”

With the game in double overtime, Gauchos midfielder Romy Barber ended the match as she put a shot past Southwick in the top right of the net. The loss dropped the Aztecs to 3-3-2.

“The thing that stood out the most to me was that if we don’t play at the absolute highest level, speaking effort wise, for the entire game, it puts us behind the eight-ball,” Friesen said. “It just gives us a lot of ground to make up. Our effort just was not great in the first half.”

After coaching the Gauchos from 1999 to 2003, Friesen came to SDSU as an assistant and was named head coach this year.

The Aztecs were outshot for the sixth time this season, forcing Southwick to stop nine shots. Despite the loss, Friesen was able to find solace in the adjustments his team made.

“We did make some adjustments at halftime,” Friesen said. “We came out and played very well in the second half. We changed the momentum of the game, created a goal off of it, and put ourselves in a position to win the game.”

While ultimately the loss stung, Friesen still had fun returning.

“It was fun to come back and to coach against Paul (Stumpf), their head coach, who I’m great friends with and who I’ve coached with for five years,” Friesen said. “To see family and friends was fun.”