49ers hand Ags first home loss of season
Three has been a lucky number for the Long Beach State soccer team.
They beat Harvard and BYU 3-0, tied Oregon 3-3 and Sunday afternoon the 49ers added to their lucky number stigma by blanking the Aggies 3-0, handing USU its first home loss of the season.
Though the Aggies fell 3-0, the game was closer than the score indicates.
“I think our team matched their intensity, I thought our team matched their emotion,” USU head coach Heather Cairns said. “We came out here and we fought until that last 10 minutes.”
It wasn’t until the last 15 minutes of the match that the 49ers scored, but once they started, they didn’t stop, scoring their final goal with three seconds left on the clock.
Though Long Beach State made an aggressive finish, early on it was either team’s game for the taking.
At halftime, neither team had scored and the Aggies had a slight edge in shooting with a 2-1 advantage. Until Sunday, the 49ers averaged seven goals in the first half and more than 12 per game.
“Going into halftime, our back line was feeling great, our team was feeling great,” said senior defender Alyssa Lowry, who led the backline in holding off the onslaught of Long Beach State attacks. “We had great team defense. We were working really well together in the first half.”
As well as the Aggies played in the first half, the 49ers made the necessary adjustments in the second half to control the ball and keep steady pressure on the Aggies, and USU didn’t, Lowry said.
“You could definitely tell that they talked at halftime and changed a few things,” Lowry said. “They were a little more longer balls, direct balls, behind our back line. We just didn’t adjust to that, putting it on the floor and denying their service on the long balls.”
Long Beach State’s first goal came in the 75th minute when Kim Silos sized up Aggie goalkeeper Ali Griffin and fired a hard shot to the right corner of the net from seven yards out.
Seven minutes later, Long Beach State benefited from a high bounce from Nicole Hubbard that slipped behind the back line and allowed for a quick header by Lindsay Bullock, who scored her fifth goal of the season.
With fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the game, the Aggies struggled to prevent the time-killing play of Long Beach State and Cairns said, “I thought our team just gave up – that’s not acceptable.”
As the clock wound down to 0, LBSU’s Kristen Kiefer kicked a final shot that trickled into the right side of the net to add insult to injury to the Aggies.
“Here’s the thing, I thought when it was 2-0, even though we were losing at that point, I thought we still played a great game,” Cairns said. “It was a back and forth game and I thought the difference was they finished their opportunities and we didn’t.
“As a coach, I cannot complain about that because the team is doing everything you ask and sometimes you need a little bit of luck to score. But it’s that third goal that is really upsetting.”
Even though the defeat marked the first home loss of the season, Cairns said this game could have an upside if her team can fix the breakdown that allowed the final goal in the waning seconds of the match.
“We need to get it straightened out before conference so if this doesn’t happen to us again the rest of the year, this loss will be worth it,” Cairns said.
With the loss, the Aggies fell to 4-5-1 on the season, while the 49ers improved to 5-2-2.
-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu