USU the WAC’s only unbeaten
In their lowest scoring game of the season, the USU women’s soccer team got their first-ever conference win against Fresno State, winning 1-0, and extended their Western Athletic Conference winning streak to four games.
Riding high as the leaders of the conference, the Aggies are the league’s only undefeated team and a win against Fresno State was critical to keeping that first-place status, though head coach Heather Cairns said her team’s big focus is on winning the WAC championship.
But Sunday’s victory over Fresno State was a key first step to that, earning the Aggies that important fourth win to qualify for the tournament, said junior midfielder Lindsey Smart.
“It’s awesome because four is the magic number to get in the tournament, and I’d rather do it right in the first four games than wait until the very end,” Smart said. “So now we can focus on just getting better so that we can win a WAC championship.”
Coming into the match, the Bulldogs owned a 2-0-2 advantage over USU, and had allowed only minimal goals against all season. True to form, the Bulldogs allowed minimal goals but the Aggies finally broke in the win column against Fresno State in the USU seniors final home match of the season.
What ended up being the game-winning goal came in the 40th minute of play, when a cross inside the box put pressure on FSU goalkeeper Kaitlyn Revel and sophomore forward Lauren Hansen took a close range shot. The shot deflected off Revel, giving junior transfer Andrea Seledee an easy shot, which she poked through. The goal was Seledee’s first of the season.
“One of our big emphasis has been we need to come out stronger in the first half, we cannot be just a second-half team,” Cairns said. “Today I think we really accomplished that. We’re over that hump, we’re ready to do that. I think that the deciding factor in this game was us being able to pounce on them early.”
Though Seledee had the lone goal, the Aggies had plenty of scoring opportunities in a first half that was entirely dominated by an aggressive USU attack. The Aggies outshot the Bulldogs 12-1, with six shots on frame.
Even with a lead at the half, Seledee said the Aggies weren’t too comfortable, knowing Fresno State is a second half team.
That statement couldn’t have been more accurate, with Fresno State dominating play from the minute the whistle was blown. The Bulldogs only fired off four shots in the second half but spent much of the half putting pressure on the Aggie defense inside the box, requiring USU’s midfield to play back, which prevented many Utah State attacks.
Though extremely physical, with 16 total fouls in the half, the Aggies held the Bulldogs scoreless.
“One of our players, Fish (Chandra Salmon), said we’re a full 90 team and I think we showed that today,” Seledee said. “We played the whole 90 and never stopped.”
The Aggies are 9-7-1 on the year and 4-0-0 in WAC play.
An unexpected shootout
The visiting Nevada Wolf Pack were supposed to be a lot of things, but a high scoring team was not one of them.
Coming into Friday’s match, Nevada owned a 1-10-2 record and had only scored six goals all season.
In a strange turn of events, the Wolf Pack turned the game into a ping-pong like shooting barrage, in which the Aggies came out on top with a slight 4-3 victory.
“We were fortunate that the clock ran out when it did,” Cairns said. “I felt fortunate we could waste away the time at the end and keep that lead because that was just going back and forth all day long.”
The Aggies got on the board first in the 23rd minute when freshman Marissa Sanchez slipped her second goal of the season past Wolf Pack goalkeeper Marie Cove from four yards out.
Though it took them nearly 15 minutes to respond, Nevada answered with their own long shot from 20 yards out to even things up.
The race was on.
Six minutes later, sophomore midfielder Heather Pond fed the ball to freshman forward Shantel Flanary, who pounded in a picture-perfect shot to the top right corner of the net in a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper.
Nevada scored their second goal just seconds before the end of the half off a corner kick situation. USU senior goalkeeper Ali Griffin punched the shot in the air and when it landed it found the feet of Nevada’s Ellie Stott, who popped in the ball.
“I think that in conference games you have to expect the unexpected,” said junior defender Sydne Porter. “We knew it was going to be a battle. We knew they were going to come out hard.”
Blaming the back-and-forth nature of the game on being too comfortable, Porter said the Aggies had the drive to win the game. Porter was the spark in the second half that allowed USU to claim a victory.
Just minutes into the second half, Porter crossed the ball to Hansen, who beat a Nevada defender and slipped the ball in from 10 yards out.
In a similar play, Nevada’s Cristen Drummond fired a rocket of a shot over Griffin to once again even up the match.
The Wolf Pack applied heavy pressure on the Aggies, not allowing another goal until the 82nd minute, when Porter took a long free kick that forced Cove to dive on the ball and drag it back in the net, resulting in the game-winning goal.
“Syd Porter was exceptional today. She was a huge bright spot for us,” Cairns said. “In a day when a lot of people struggled she really held us together. She was kind of the glue that kept us going on both sides of the ball. For a defender to be that potent in the attack is a little rare.”
Though it was a battle to the end, Cairns said she was glad her team learned from lessons of the past and found a way to finish the match.
–seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu
USU junior defender Erin Salmon, 8, fights for the ball against a Nevada defender Friday. The Aggies won, 4-3. (Debra Hawkins)