Aggies record payback victory over Utes
Relentless pressure. It was something that paid dividends for the Utah State University men’s soccer club in the Aggies’ regular season opener – a 2-0 shutout of the University of Utah Friday night at Tower Field.
“I think that’s [constant pressure] one of the things we try to emphasize in practice, and was something we were able to do [Friday],” USU Head Coach Carlos Coirolo said. “We were quite pleased with our offensive attack.”
After being held scoreless at the half, USU’s attacking presence on offense finally took its toll on the Ute defense as forward Sterling Campbell scored twice in a two-minute span to give the Aggies all the scoring they would need.
With the victory, Utah State was able to avenge its season-opening loss to the Utes a year ago. In that game, Utah scored twice in the second half, giving it a 3-2 come-from-behind victory.
When asked if the Aggies used last season’s game as an motivating factor, Coirolo said he didn’t feel his players focused on exacting revenge against the Utes. Instead they focused on starting the season off on the right foot, he said.
“It’s always great to win the first game, especially at home,” he said. “I think the players came in a little bit nervous, so it was really important [for us] to settle down after the first couple of minutes of the game and play our style of soccer.”
Led by Campbell and team captain James Barnard, USU made sure the Utes would need a similar comeback to record a win in Friday’s contest.
After creating several scoring opportunities for his teammates in the first half, Barnard made the Utes pay early in the second half when he dribbled around a couple of Ute defenders and found Campbell at the far post for USU’s first goal.
“He’s [Barnard] such a feisty player,” Coirolo said. He wins a lot of balls for us, and he’s willing to get down on the ground [to help the team].”
Just over a minute removed from his first goal, Campbell added an insurance goal when he found the back of the net off of a loose ball in the Ute penalty box.
As effective as USU was on the offensive side of the ball, the Aggie defense was also up to the challenge, holding the Utes scoreless despite being a man down for a good portion of the second half following midfielder Jesse Wagner’s second yellow card.
“Our defense has been playing big,” Coirolo said. “We have a few things we need to work on, but their effort was great when we had only 10 guys playing.”
Following a Utah corner kick early in the first half, the Aggies responded with several scoring opportunities of their own, including a laser by Brent Sly in which Utah goalie Nate Kennaley made a punch save over the goal.
USU continued to keep the Utes off-balance when Paul Sanders chipped a ball behind the Utah defense for a streaking Campbell, only to be denied by a diving Kennaley. A couple of minutes later, Kennaley thwarted another Aggie scoring opportunity by making an acrobatic save on a shot by Sanders.
Like his Ute counterpart, Aggie goalie Bryan Easterman was also up to the task in the first half, denying U of U forward Dustin Nye on a volley attempt from 25 yards out.
The Aggies were back in action Saturday, but were unable to pick up the weekend sweep as they dropped a 1-0 game to in-state foe Weber State University at Tower Field.
Saturday’s game was originally scheduled to be played in Ogden, but was moved to Logan when the Wildcats were left without a field following a scheduling conflict with the women’s soccer team, Coirolo said.
In a game Coirolo said featured wind, rain and a brief hailstorm, the Aggies were unable to capitalize on what Coirolo called USU’s best 25-minute stretch of soccer this season.
“We played our best 25 minutes so far this season, and they [the Wildcats] score a goal on their only really good scoring chance,” he said. “They seemed to be really confused until they scored that goal.”
Coirolo said the Aggies had three or four great chances to score against the Wildcats, but came up empty handed in a game he said was marred by several yellow cards.