Shooting barrage ends in draw
Despite out-shooting Dixie State University 33-7 and taking the game into double overtime, the USU soccer squad couldn’t pull ahead and finished the game with a 1-1 draw, Saturday, Aug. 18 at home.
Within six minutes of her collegiate soccer debut, freshman forward Lauren Hansen scored her first career goal and gave the Aggies their lone goal of the game.
“I was so nervous right before,” Hansen said. “I just took it and put it where I wanted it to go. It was a beautiful ball by Dana [Peart] to set it up and everyone was yelling at me to take it and shoot it. Scoring that goal early calmed my nerves a little.”
In the sixth minute of play, senior midfielder and team captain, Dana Peart stole the ball from a Rebel defender and with a sliding kick delivered the ball to Hansen. Dribbling the ball around a DSU defender, Hansen took a shot from the top of the 18-yard box and rocketed the ball past Rebel goalkeeper Suzanne Hunt, to give the Aggies an early 1-0 lead.
The Aggie advantage was short lived as the Rebels responded with a strong attack on Aggie junior goalkeeper Lisa Willardson. Dixie State forward Wendy Stratford sprinted ahead of USU defenders to leave her in a one-on-one showdown with Willardson. Deking, Stratford pulled Willardson well away from the net and with a quick move at the net, faked out Willardson, who fell to her knees, leaving the net wide open. Stratford walked the ball forward and easily put the ball in the back of the net to tie the game and provide the final goal of the day.
“It was a total defensive breakdown,” Head Coach Heather Cairns said of Stratford’s penetration of the Aggie defense. “I think probably a midfielder, all four defenders and the goaltender were disorganized and got juked. It was chaos.”
The first half was dominated by play at the extremes of the field, with minimal action in the midfield and both teams splitting time with the ball. Midway through the half the Aggies moved away from the sporadic playing scheme and started passing the ball around. This style of play kept the ball in Aggies’ possession for the majority of the half, which allowed USU to fire off 12 shots in the first half, many of which were just off the mark. Dixie State struggled to maintain possession of the ball long enough to get down the field and only managed three shots the entire half.
“I felt that half way through the first half we started to possess the ball,” Cairns said. “Before it was definitely more choppy. It wasn’t necessarily something I was pushing from the sideline but it was something we had been working on to feel the rhythm of it.”
The second half brought a change in the net for the Aggies as junior goalkeeper Ali Griffin took her turn in the net. Griffin played every minute in the net for the Aggies last season and provided a staunch defense against strong Rebel pressure in the second half of play on Saturday. Griffin posted three saves, including a diving save from a shot by DSU’s Robyn Wall in the final minutes of regular play.
In a physical game that saw 30 total fouls, the ball took to the air with action on both sides of the field. The Aggies pressed hard on the DSU net with a barrage of shots but couldn’t manage to land any of their 14 shots in the net. Hansen proved an asset again in the second half with a shot that bounced off the top right corner of the goal, barely missing a second goal on the day. Hansen saw considerable action in the forward position, along with midfielder Katie Brower, as the Aggies utilized more focused crossing patterns, Cairns said. This opened up the field for numerous scoring opportunities but the Aggies couldn’t convert. Hansen finished the game with seven shots.
“At halftime we talked about the quality of our crosses,” Cairns said. “The first half we were just kind of playing it in there and saying a prayer it would land on somebody’s head. In the second half we started picking out a target and being more purposeful with our crosses.”
As regulation time dwindled, the Rebels notched up the pressure and kept USU on the defensive. Dixie State struggled to find open passing routes through the USU defensive line and managed just three shots in the half. With the score still tied the game went into overtime.
Both overtimes were packed with close shots but poor execution on both sides left the final score the same as at the half.
Cairns said her team had only three practices before the game, all of which focused on getting down a new system of play instituted this season.
“We practiced three times before this,” Cairns said. “Obviously you don’t like to out-shoot somebody 33 to 7 and only score one goal. I think that not only had we practiced three times, we instituted a new system. We’re playing a new system right now. So between the two of those things, I was pretty pleased with the learning we did this week. I was thrilled with the challenges we were able to create. Obviously you want to poke some in but we’re heads and tails better than we were last year.”
Brower said the physicality of the game will help prepare the Aggies for the upcoming season.
“If we keep building on this and every game get better, I think we’ll be much better,” Brower said.
Notable absences in the match included sophomore forward Erin Salmon, who was a leading scorer for the Aggies last season, and junior forward Candice Clark, both of whom are recovering from knee injuries.
The Aggies begin a five-game road stretch, beginning with Texas State on Aug. 31.
-seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu