Aggie men struggle in season opener
Being a club team certainly can have its disadvantages.
Saturday afternoon at the Tower Fields, the USU men’s club soccer squad was shut out by the Weber State Wildcats, 3-0.
It was the season opener for the Aggies, but the fifth game for the ‘Cats.
The explanation for the final score comes from the following story: Coming into the game USU was scrambling, having found out only four weeks ago that last year’s coach had decided to not do anything with the team this year.
Because of that, the Aggies had gone through only three practices before Saturday.
The new man at the helm, who asked only to be known as Coach Mogi, was recruited by his next-door neighbor Greg Larsen (one of the team captains). Because of the late notice from the old coach, Larsen and teammate Dave Firmage went to work to round up people to be on the squad, as well as put a schedule together.
Mogi said he has been in soccer for almost 20 years, being involved in coaching state premier soccer, so it was a good fit.
“We have 25 guys on our roster,” Mogi said. “We’re looking at a lot of everybody. We don’t have a whole lot of continuity because we’re looking at a lot of players. We’re looking at combinations, to see who plays well with whom. We haven’t put it together quite yet. We’ve only had three practices, so this is kind of a practice game. We’re trying to find who we want on the field.”
The Wildcats were obviously the better team, spending much of the game around the Aggies’ goal.
Near the end of the first half, USU was down 1-0 but was able to launch a few balls above Weber’s goal.
In the second frame of play, it was more of the same. In about the 12th minute, the Aggies had the ball on the Widcats’ side of the field. Weber stole it away, and a few passes later were up 2-0 with well executed passing on the breakaway.
About 10 minutes later, the Wildcats connected on their final goal.
“We’re trying too hard to score and got caught on the back door,” Mogi said. “We just didn’t ever get into a good rhythm. Once we get more comfortable with each other and talking more, a rhythm will come. Weber is a well-organized group. Their school buys them balls and uniforms. They’ve got some money in their program, which really makes a difference. They do a lot of summer work; we didn’t do any summer work.”
However, Mogi said he is confident the Aggies have a load of talent that will show more as the team plays more.
The next game will be Saturday, Sept. 22 , at 12 p.m. on the Tower Fields against Utah Valley University. On Oct. 5, USU will take on the University of Utah in Park City, followed by a contest with Weber the next day in Ogden. The next home game after that will be Oct. 13 against Utah.
“We’ve had one week together as a team,” Firmage said. “We’re just kind of getting comfortable.”
-samuel.hislop@aggiemail.usu.edu