Lacrosse blows away Snow College
After spending much of this lacrosse season getting sand kicked in their collective face by the powerhouse lacrosse clubs of the west, the USU lacrosse team thoroughly enjoyed playing back-to-back games Saturday against inferior competition.
USU faced Snow College at 11 a.m. on the Tower Field and won, 12-1, before facing Weber State at 1 p.m. and recovering from a 3-1 deficit to win, 6-4.
“Once everyone realized that we were way better, everyone just wanted to score,” Head Coach Matt Polytika said.
Besides the two wins, USU also celebrated Senior Day for Kent “Doughnut” Arnold, the only senior on the team. Unfortunately “Doughnut” sprained his ankle in the first game and sat out against Weber State.
Polytika said he was glad to get to see his players fight against teams which did not possess huge advantages in the number of subs available.
“Obviously we don’t win a lot of games against the teams that we play, but we’re at a higher level than the majority of the teams in-state,” Polytika said. “We play the best teams in the nation so we don’t beat them all the time, but we can beat the majority of every other college in the state.”
Two freshmen led the Aggies in scoring. Keenan Nuehring scored twice against Snow and once against Weber. His mom, who works in the USU Registrar’s Office and was in attendance at Saturday’s games, said she was very proud of him.
Cody Nelson was the other top goal getter for USU. He found the back of the net three times against Snow and twice against Weber.
“The first game we came out pretty hard. We were up 5-1 before we knew it, and that was the only goal they had,” Polytika said.
Against Weber State, the Ags found themselves in a battle. The team went into halftime down 3-1 after Polytika said they tried to score at will the way they had against Snow and were frustrated by Weber’s goalie play.
“We came out a little slow, probably a little sluggish from playing a game before that,” Polytika said. “At halftime we talked about coming back up. They only scored one goal in the second half, so overall it was a good team win.”
USU dominated possession in the second half, working the ball around the outside of Weber’s zone and winning it back every time they dropped it. Steady pressure opened up hitherto invisible cracks in the Weber defense, and the Aggies created their own momentum.
Next Saturday Polytika’s young squad will be playing a win-or-go-home game against the University of Utah at Judge Memorial Stadium. Utah beat USU 24-3 in their last meeting on the HPER field.
-graham@cc.usu.edu