Men’s soccer loses heartbreaker in final minutes
After getting soundly beaten by BYU 6-1 Sept. 28, the Utah State University men’s soccer club was anxious to show the Cougars it could compete with them.
USU was able to do just that Friday night in Provo.
However, it wasn’t enough against arguably the best club team in the country as BYU scored late in the game en route to a 2-1 victory over the Aggies.
“I feel we did a real good job executing [our game-plan],” said James Barnard, Aggie captain. “We pretty much did everything we wanted to do; we just didn’t get the outcome we wanted.”
The game-plan Barnard was referring to was USU’s focus on compressing the field on defense.
In its last game against BYU, Barnard said the Cougar forwards had too much open field to work with – something a speedy BYU front line thrives on. Keeping more players back on defense gave USU only a few good scoring chances on the counter-attack, Barnard said, but was necessary against the vaunted Cougar attack.
“We didn’t have too many [scoring chances], but that’s kind of how it worked out from our game-plan,” he said.
USU was able to find the back of the net on one of its chances, though.
Forward Justus Loyet was able to get open in the penalty area on an Aggie corner kick, Barnard said, knotting the game at 1-1 with five minutes to go in the second half.
Unfortunately for the Aggies, BYU foiled USU’s chance to send the game to overtime with two minutes to go in the game.
The Cougars scored the game-winning goal off a great individual play, Barnard said, when a BYU forward dribbled past four Aggie defenders and found an open teammate on a cross to the far post.
Although Barnard said he was happy with the team’s performance, the way the game ended was hard to take.
“We played a lot better than we did last time, but from a losing standpoint, it’s disappointing,” he said.
The Aggies will close their season Saturday when they travel to Orem to take on Utah Valley State College.
USU and UVSC have played once this season, with the game ending in a 2-2 tie.
If the Aggies need any additional motivation to win their last game, missing two great chances in overtime of the last USU/UVSC game should do the trick, Barnard said.
“It was a game we should have won,” he said.
-jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu