Soccer team falls to Utah 3-0

The Utah State soccer team found out redemption can be tough when the Utah Utes won 3-0 Thursday night at Bell Field.

The Utes had just lost their first two games of the season this past weekend and had dropped out of the Top 25. Needless to say, the Utes were focused coming out of the gate as their coach pushed the team to attack.

As a result, the Utes scored twice in the first 20 minutes to take an early commanding lead.

The first goal came from a nice cross into the middle, which found the back of the net. The second came off a misplay by Aggie goalie Kelli Allred. Allred charged the defender but fell and Adele Letro found the back of the net to put the Utes up 2-0.

“The early goals killed us,” Utah State Head Coach Heather Cairns said. “I don’t think the second goal would have happened if the first one hadn’t. We lost our momentum there.”

At the 24th minute, Cairns took out Allred and put in Lisa Willardson to replace her as goalie. From there on out, the Ags played better, Cairns said.The third goal in the second half didn’t concern Cairns as much because the Ags were pushing up and the Utes’ service was almost perfect.

“About 20 minutes in, we figured out their system,” Cairns said. “We figured out how to defend it, we figured out how to get some possession out of it and we figured out how to attack a little bit.”

Even though it took longer than expected the results for the last 70 minutes were somewhat encouraging, Cairns said.

Cairns said she isn’t as disappointed with the loss as she could be. The Ags played better against the U than they had at the Y last week. With Portland State at home this Saturday, Utah State still has some momentum from their two wins last weekend. As for the entire season, the team’s goal has always been to peak for the conference season and Cairns said she feels they are still on track to do that.

Cairns wouldn’t say one way or the other what was going to happen with the goalie situation, but left it up to her assistant coach and goalie instructor Brent Anderson to decide who will start.