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Ags split tough weekend schedule, get big win over Wyoming

By Seth R. Hawkins

Previewing a tough Hawaii/San Jose State weekend road trip later this season, the USU women’s soccer team came out 1-1 this weekend, losing 1-0 to Cal Poly Friday and defeating Wyoming 2-1 Sunday.

The win over Wyoming was the first for the Aggies since the team’s inception in 1996 and evens the overall series out to 3-2 in favor of Wyoming. With the win, the Aggies improved to 5-6-1 on the season, while the Cowgirls fell to 5-5-1.

USU head coach Heather Cairns said this was one of the toughest weekend road schedules her team has faced this year in terms of travel and quality of opponents, and was designed to prepare her team for a similar challenge when they face Hawaii and San Jose State on the weekend of Oct. 24-26.

After losing a tough 1-0 match to Cal Poly, the Aggies didn’t get much rest, landing in Laramie, Wyo. at 7 p.m. Saturday night and playing the Cowgirls at noon. Despite the fast turnaround time, Cairns said her team played well.

“We felt like we played a really solid game and had a lot of opportunities and dominated the game overall,” Cairns said. “We really challenged the girls on this road trip.”

Being challenged was exactly what the Aggies experienced against a fast-paced, numbers-forward Wyoming team. Cairns said the first 15 minutes of the game were dominated by Wyoming’s long ball, direct style of play. In those opening minutes, Cairns said the Cowgirls played as many as six players forward at any given time.

Responding to the threat, the USU midfielders won balls and slowed the tempo of the game more to the liking of the Aggies, Cairns said, which would prove to be the difference maker in the outcome of the game.

“It was really a kind of battle,” Cairns said. “I think our team did a great job playing our style of game and we didn’t fall into their style of game.”

At the half, neither team had landed a goal but Wyoming had an 8-4 shooting advantage. Cairns said at the half she talked to her team about turning up the attack and finishing off shots.

Her pep talk worked.

Ten minutes into the second half, junior forward Erin Salmon took a loose ball and fired in a shot from the top of the 18-yard box to give the Aggies a 1-0 lead. The goal was Salmon’s third of the year, putting her second in points scored on the team.

“She really just pressured a defender and played a great shot,” Cairns said. “It was a lot of individual effort on her part.”

In the 78th minute, USU got on the board again off a penalty kick resulting from a hand ball. Freshman defender Summer Tillotson powered in the penalty kick to score her first collegiate goal.

Down 2-0, the Cowgirls refused to give up. Like the first half, Wyoming outshot the Aggies 8-6 and owned a 6-1 corner kick advantage, which provided several close calls, Cairns said. Senior goalkeeper Ali Griffin protected the net well, Cairns said, giving the Aggies the defense they needed to win the game.

“Ali Griffin was important to our success today,” Cairns said. “(Wyoming was) pretty strong on their corner kicks. She came out and punched a lot of them away.”
Despite a strong showing by Griffin, she was denied a shutout as the Cowgirl’s Emily Layton scored her sixth goal of the year with just six seconds remaining in the match. The late goal marked the second last-second goal in a week’s span, which Cairns said was a result of mistakes made in the midfield.

“We didn’t make a good play on the girl with the ball,” Cairns said. “Playing on the road is hard. We can’t let the goal taint our success this weekend, because we did a good job to fight hard enough and win. It was just a matter of getting a win in the column, it didn’t matter what the score was.”

USU at Cal Poly

It took Cal Poly just over 15 minutes to score what would become the game-winning goal, and given 10 more minutes, Cairns said the Aggies could have evened things up.

“If we had 10 more minutes in that game, we would have tied it up,” Cairns said. “We had a bunch of opportunities that second half. We really figured out how to attack them.”

But soccer is a game of 90 minutes and Cairns said while her team played 90 minutes, it took them a while to figure out how to play one of the most challenging opponents of the year.

“That was a tough game,” Cairns said. “The first half they really dominated play. They were a big physical team, probably bigger and more physical than any team we’ve seen in the last two years.”

In the 16th minute of the match, the Mustangs got on the board as Carrie Andrews headed in a corner kick, scoring her first goal of the season.

For the remainder of the match, Cairns said her team provided heavy offensive pressure, but in the end it wasn’t enough to get the win.

“We did do a good job, a better job,” Cairns said. “Sometimes it’s just the quality of the competition, it’s tough. That’s what prepares us for WAC.”

-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.ed