Grudge match against Utes on Saturday looms for Aggie men’s soccer club
After a three-game road trip last weekend, the Utah State University men’s soccer club will be playing two in-state rematches this weekend.
This afternoon, USU will play a home match against Salt Lake Community College. The match will start at 5 p.m. on Tower Field.
In the last meeting between the two teams, USU pulled out the 4-3 overtime victory at SLCC, scoring the game winner off of a penalty kick.
This time, the Aggies expect just as tough of a game.
“I’m expecting a tough match against SLCC,” goalkeeper Paul Dowdy said. “They’ll be out for us. It’ll be a good, tough game.”
“I think it will be close, but we’ll have home field,” forward Neal Obray said.
Following today’s game, the Aggies will play on the road tomorrow against the University of Utah at 2 p.m.
Last time the Aggies played Utah, they lost 2-1 in overtime but were a man down much of the game.
“Hopefully we’ll show up ready,” Obray said.
Obray said the key for the team is to stay focused and keep out of trouble with penalties.
“The red card really hurt us last time,” Obray said, referring to the loss of forward Treagan White when he received a red card against Utah.
Dowdy said controlling themselves and avoiding penalties is something the team really needs to work on. The Aggies have lost three close games, two of those in overtime when they were a man down.
“We are taking games away from ourselves,” Dowdy said. “We need to work on it now. Obviously we need to be more concerned. If we can stay at full strength, we should be all right.”
“It was a heated battle last time, but we felt we dominated and controlled the game,” Obray said.
“We knew we controlled even a man down,” Dowdy said. “It was impressive to get a goal a man down.”
Though the Aggies will be playing two games this weekend, they don’t expect fatigue to be a problem. On their California road trip, USU played two games and Obray said he thinks it helped them to prepare for this weekend.
“We shouldn’t be fatigued, we are conditioned enough,” Obray said.
The Aggies went 1-1 in California and played two close games, but Obray said he thinks the Utah teams are tougher in general.
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