Freshman foursome lead soccer to pair of spring wins
A handful of USU freshman showed some scoring ability over the weekend as the Aggie women’s soccer team won both of its games at the Utah Valley spring tournament, beating UVU 1-0 and Southern Utah 3-0.
Freshman defender Taryn Rose scored the lone goal against the Wolverines, assisted by her former high school teammate, freshman midfielder Kendra Pemberton.
Freshman striker Mari Miyashiro had a pair of goals against SUU and freshman midfielder Jennifer Flynn added another score in the match.
Although both supplemental matches were shortened for offseason play, USU head coach Heather Cairns said the games went pretty well.
“We set some possession goals that we wanted to reach,” Cairns said. “We’re knocking the ball around really well. We got more dangerous as the day went on. We started a little bit slow and progressively got better throughout the day.”
Cairns said the Aggies need to find a way to replace their all-time leading goal scorer Lauren Hansen who was a senior last season.
“One big question mark we have going into next fall that we’re trying to solve this spring is how do we replace Lauren Hansen,” Cairns said. “We’ve been doing that with a collective effort. It’s been really nice to see.”
In the attack, the Aggies will return forward Shantel Flanary, who will be a senior. Miyashiro, Pemberton and Flynn will all be sophomores next fall. Striker Libby Lundquist, who did not score over the weekend but was “very key” in building chances, Cairns said, will also be a sophomore.
“We’re playing a new formation,” Cairns said. “We hope to keep refining our ability to attack and defend out of that and get comfortable with that. We have really worked on attacking third play; being dangerous from the attacking third. We’ve been working on that final pass.”
During the offseason, Cairns said she changed the attacking formation the Aggies will use this fall to a 4-2-3-1 to see if it will bring out the team’s strengths more.
“Last year we played a 4-3-1-2,” Cairns said. “We’ve just changed the starting positions of our attacking players a little bit more. It’s allowed us to get the ball dribbling at our opponents as opposed to always having our forwards getting the ball with their back to goal.”
Defensively, the Aggies will be anchored by a back line that allowed just six goals in WAC regular season play last fall.
“We’ve been refining some defensive principles,” Cairns said. “Being organized defensively, having pressure on the ball, having two players pressure the ball if we can, trapping our opponents. So we really just have to keep refining that and being able to do those skills at a higher speed of play.”
Three-time first-team All-WAC midfielder Chandra Salmon will return to help on the defensive side of the ball for the Aggies. Salmon was also named to the 2010 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Women’s College Scholar All-America Team.
Returning from injury is freshman defender Tayrn Rose out of Woods Cross High School, who redshirted for USU last season with an ACL injury sustained in May.
The Aggies will also have the help of Shay Haddow, a transfer from Virginia Commonwealth University. Haddow is a native of South Jordan, Utah, and played at Bingham High School before moving to Richmond to wear a Rams uniform.
“Those three have been rotating into that defensive center mid position,” Cairns said. “That’s allowed us to really play with two defensive center mids and let everyone else go forward because those guys can really hold down that space and prevent our opponents from counter attacking.”
The Aggies will continue offseason play as they next travel to Pocatello, Idaho, to face the Bengals of Idaho State University on Saturday, April 2 at 11 a.m.
– tavin.stucki@aggiemail.usu.edu