Women’s soccer splits weekend games
Utah State women’s soccer concluded its non-conference portion of the season on Sunday, splitting a pair of games at the Chuck and Gloria Bell field over the weekend.
USU first battled the Utah Utes. The Aggies came out at halftime with a 0-0 draw and four shots on goal to Utah’s five. Four minutes into the second half, Utah forward Mariah Elmer blasted an unassisted goal into the top right corner for the first score of the game. Six minutes later, Ute forward Natalie Vukic hit her first goal of the match and pushed the lead to 2-0. The visitors scored their third and final goal in the 64th minute of the game, as Ute midfielder Katie Rigby scored off an assist by midfielder Kaycee Buckley.
“I thought the first half we came out strong,” said head coach Heather Cairns. “We obviously didn’t take advantage of our chances. I think we put one or two of those in early in the game and its a different game. We kept them in it until half time, and then I think we let 0-0 game become 2-0 too quickly.”
The Aggies finished the match scoreless despite nine shots on goal.
“We didn’t respond very well after they scored that first goal,” Cairns said. “It really put us back in our heels. We have to learn to get through that, you’re going to get scored on. You’re not going to get a clean sheet every game, so I don’t think we responded well enough for that.”
Coach Cairn aimed to make adjustments for the Aggies’ game on Sunday.
“Riverside is a very good squad,” Cairns said, “they are regionally ranked. They have a really dangerous striker that we are going to have to keep an eye on. It’s going to be a good game. I imagine it’s going to be a tight game like this, so again I think we would love to go up first. If we don’t we need to battle through it, those are going to be our goals on that.”
Sunday’s match started as a defensive struggle. Utah State’s offensive opportunity did not come until the 42nd minute of the game, when freshman midfielder Erin Rickenbach gained control of the ball and passed it off to senior Lexi Morgan, who scored the game’s lone goal.
The physicality of both teams combined for a total of 21 fouls in the match, Utah State with eight and University California Riverside with 13, including a yellow card caution to forward Tyler Cunningham in the 75th minute of the game. The game ended with the Highlanders shooting on goal 19 times and the Aggies seven.
“I think this game was big for a couple of reasons,” Cairns said. “One, because we wanted to bounce back. We thought we only played half of the game on Friday, so we wanted to definitely bounce back from that. Two, Riverside’s a good team. They were a PK away from making the NCAA Tournament last year. They’re regionally ranked. And three, we really wanted to end on a good note. This is the end of the non-conference portion of our season, so we wanted to make sure that we ended on a high note going into the start of conference play next Friday at Colorado College.”
Morgan added that the win was especially big for the team’s conference implications.
“This is huge,” Morgan said, “we felt really disappointed about Friday and it was really good for us to come up with this win. Especially going into conference, we needed this momentum to keep it going and hopefully go into conference with a high and feeling good about ourselves.”
Morgan’s goal earned USU the win and a 4-3-1 record.
“My goal, Erin Rickenbach had it trapped underneath her somehow and I kind of went around Erin and the ball just popped out and she shielded it perfectly,” Morgan said. “It popped out to me and I hit it as hard as I could and it went right in. It was pretty lucky but it was good.”
Junior goalkeeper Jeannie Woller earned her third shutout of the year. Woller’s recorded six saves during the game to add to her season save total of 27 and a save percentage of .711.
“I think it’s huge for our morale coming of off a game on Friday against the U where it was a 3-0 game,” Woller said. “I don’t think it necessarily showed how we played that game, but it hurts a little bit. With a score like that to able to come out and hold it the last 15 seconds left, 15 minutes of the entire game. It’s a huge boost for us especially with conference starting next week, there is nothing better than a win before that.”
Woller credited the entire Aggie defense for her shutout this game.
“I didn’t know I had six saves,” Woller said. “It was a lot of defensive effort across the board. Six saves, six shots is not a lot of shots on goal to be saved, so the defensive effort across the back was completely awesome. Coming off of getting scored three time in the last game but as a goalie you get scored on. You have to be able to bounce back from that and to show it today with a shutout, it feels nice and it’s definitely an entire defensive work.”
Woller added that her mental focus heading into games has a major influence on her play.
“To prepare for this game for me, I definitely focused on what I can control because sometimes shots are great and forwards are great players,” Woller said. “It’s being able to see the positives and not focus on the negatives. I didn’t get a shutout, so what, I got scored on, so what, it happens to every goalie. To be able to move forward and see pass that into the next game and to do well for my team for the next moment and holding on to stuff like that it’s really cool and helps anyone on the field.”
The Aggies will be back on the road this week as they head to Colorado Springs, CO to open conference play on Friday Sept. 26th. USU will take on Colorado College, a newcomer to the conference, at 1 p.m. USU will then play at Air Force on Sunday, Sept. 28th at noon.