Ags get fourth seed for WAC tourney
Three years, three advances to the Western Athletic Conference Tournament and three speedy exits.
The USU women’s soccer team is looking to change all that.
The Aggies enter the WAC Tournament, Thursday, Nov. 8, as the No. 4 seed, facing No. 5 seed San Jose State at 12:30 p.m. in Boise, Idaho.
“We’ve never had a win in the conference tournament, so our goal is to beat San Jose,” USU Head Coach Heather Cairns said. “They’ve advanced out of the first round the last three years. So that’s got to be our goal. We’ve got to take it one day at a time. We can’t be looking ahead to the next game.”
The last meeting between the Aggies and the Spartans, on Oct. 28, resulted in a 4-0 pounding over SJSU, the most points USU had scored in a game this season up to that point. Utah State dominated the shooting game, owning a 16-9 shooting advantage, including nine shots on goal. USU goalkeeper Ali Griffin tabbed five saves and earned her sixth shutout of the season.
Beating the Spartans earlier this season gave the Aggies some momentum, Cairns said, but she added it won’t be so easy the second time around.
“We feel good about playing San Jose State because we have confidence against them,” Cairns said. “The thing that we have to make sure is to beat a team twice in a year. You have to do something more that second time because they’ll have us figured out a bit tactically. They’ll have the edge in terms of, ‘OK, they beat us four-nothing, we want to teach them a bit of a lesson.’ So we have to stay mentally focused, know we have to execute as well as we did the first time. We have to just play a really good game. We can’t overlook them. We can’t go in with a complacent attitude because we beat them in the past.”
Confidence is something Cairns said is important going into the tournament, and she said she feels her team is feeling that confidence right now, especially after a record-setting 10-1 rout over Louisiana Tech in the final match of the regular season Saturday.
“I think we feel like we’re clicking,” Cairns said. “I think we’re defending well, we’re keeping our opponents off the board and we’re attacking really well as well. We’re being very efficient in the attack, we’re scoring a lot of goals. When you put those two things together, your confidence rises. I think we’re probably the most confident we’ve been in the three years that we’ve been going to the conference tournament.”
Offensively, the Aggies are a drastically improved team from earlier in the season. In the last seven games, all of which were against conference opponents, the Aggies have scored a combined 24 goals, posting a 5-2 record. In the 12 games prior to that, USU scored a combined 12 goals while tabbing an 8-4 record.
The WAC season has also brought out some improvement in a well-balanced attack, especially with the loss of team captain and leading scorer Dana Peart for four games due to an injury sustained against Boise State. Cairns said Peart will play some minutes in the tournament, though she is not at full strength as she continues to recover from a PCL injury.
Freshman forward Lauren Hansen leads the Aggies in scoring with nine goals on the season and 18 points. Peart is tied for second in scoring with senior midfielder Abby Hunt at five goals. Junior forward Candice Clark has also pitched in four goals and four assists. In all, 12 USU players have scored this season, creating a balanced attack.
On the other end of the field, Cairns said she feels her team is strong, giving the offense more opportunities to score. Griffin finished the regular season with a .765 save percentage, placing second in the WAC in save percentage for conference games, and tallied 65 saves on the season.
But even with the team starting to play cohesively, Cairns said her team cannot get overconfident.
“I think probably the biggest thing is just making sure we bring it for San Jose and not overlook them,” Cairns said. “We can’t underestimate the importance of that. But in terms of tactics, we feel pretty good about where we are, so it’s just going to be bringing it on that day.”
While overlooking SJSU is something Cairns wants her team to avoid, should they beat the Spartans, they would go on to play No. 1 seed Hawaii, who was the clear conference leader throughout the season, finishing with a 6-1-0 conference record. The lone conference loss was to none other than the Aggies, where Hawaii fell 3-2 in Logan.
Should USU face Hawaii again, the Ags would have the benefit of knowing they beat the Rainbow Wahine before, and there would be no home-field advantage for Hawaii, which they have relied heavily on this season. Hawaii has only won two games on the road the entire season.
When asked if she thought her team could beat Hawaii again, Cairns said, “Yeah we do, but again, we’ve really tried to control those thoughts. It’s really about taking it one game at a time because if we don’t take care of business the first day, we don’t meet Hawaii.”
-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu