Women’s soccer team falls short of BWC tourney
Hard work and determination wasn’t quite enough this weekend.
The Utah State women’s soccer team didn’t make it into the Big West Conference tournament, but it wasn’t because of lack of heart or a bad year.
The Aggies lost to UC Santa Barbara 4-1 Sunday afternoon.
Going into the game Friday, Head Coach Heather Cairns said it was up to the team to determine where it would finish.
“We’re in the driver’s seat, we control our own destiny,” she said.
The Aggies were tied for second place in league going into the weekend, needing only one win to guarantee a spot in the tournament. But by losing both games, there was no help available to get them in.
“You have to score to win,” Cairns said about Sunday’s contest against UC Santa Barbara.
The game was going back and forth for the first 20 minutes of the game, but the Gauchos scored a goal on a corner kick that took all the wind out of the Aggies’ sails.
After that, USU had some chances to score as Charlsie Harris and Nicole Feuz both had good opportunities but couldn’t convert.
“We really let them control the tempo of the match,” Cairns said.
Because of the lack of control, Utah State ended up playing defense for the majority of both halves, which makes it hard to attack and get scoring opportunities.
UCSB scored three more times while the Aggies only goal came near the end of the game at the 83-minute mark.
USU was out-played in almost every aspect of the game. Santa Barbara had 13 more shots (24) than did the Aggies (11).
Utah State only had two corner kicks opposed to the Gauchos eight. All in all though, the Aggies never stopped playing, they just never had the chance to get in a rhythm or the tempo they wanted.
They never had the chance to get much going on the offensive attack side of the field and just couldn’t get off their heals on the defensive.
USU played the then No. 22 ranked team in the nation, Cal Poly, Friday. The Mustangs were also ranked No. 1 in the Big West.
With the score only 2-0 in favor of the Mustangs, Utah State played pretty well.
They had an exceptional performance from their goalie, Megan Mills, who had six saves in the game.
As with the game on Sunday so was this game. The team had a lot of defense and not a lot of attacking. There were only four recorded shots and three of those shots were shots on goal by the Aggies.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu