NAMPA, Idaho – About the only thing good about the Northwest Nazarene women's soccer team giving up a late goal in a loss Saturday was it gave them a chance to see how they respond to adversity.

The Nighthawks lost 2-1 to Northwest University, which is located in Kirkland, Wash., near Seattle, in an exhibition match at NNU Field.

The Eagles scored on a penalty kick with less than eight minutes remaining.

"It is great to have competition like this," NNU midfielder Tennyson Young said. "Hard opponents expose our weaknesses and when we actually get to conference we know what we have to work on and what our strengths are going to be.

"We can problem solve our weaknesses against a good opponent like this instead of playing a give-me game."

Jordyn Gifford was called for a handball in the box when a Northwest player attempted a shot. Rylee Rassier then sank the penalty kick into the lower right corner past a diving Alexis Montoya.

"Obviously we want to win, but it is exactly what we want to see in an exhibition," NNU coach Mary Trigg said. "How do we respond to a PK call that we thought wasn't a PK call? What was our response to that?"

Rikki Myers gave the Nighthawks a 1-0 lead in the 23rd minute when she stole at the top of the 18 box, dribbled around a defender and scored in the lower right of the goal.

Northwest tied the game in the 42nd minute when Callie Wright stole a pass, beat a defender and scored in the upper left corner.

The Nighthawks outshot the Eagles 11-9, but only generated two corner kicks to Northwest's five.

NNU also had plenty of chances to score, but failed to capitalize in the box.

"The thing we said to the team is that our forwards need to get out 10 minutes after practice every day and we are going to practice finishing those," Trigg said. "We created the opportunities."

NNU finishes its exhibition season with a win and a loss. The Nighthawks open their regular season at 8 p.m. MDT on Thursday at Cal State Monterey Bay.

"We still have to make our travel roster and people were getting minutes and we were able to see a lot of people play," Trigg said.

Montoya made three saves in goal for NNU.

"I think we only gave ourselves one half to play," Young said. "The first half our energy was super low and we weren't being very intense. You can't give yourselves only 45 minutes."