Soccer crushed by UVSC
their 9-2 loss to UVSC on Wednesday.
Both Aggie goals came from team captain Landon Potter.
“We had a total meltdown,” Utah State Head Coach Vince Lamara said.
Even with Jake Carlson moving from the front line, where he played in the last game against BYU-Idaho, back to sweeper to anchor the defense, the Aggies weren’t able to stop the onslaught of UVSC attackers storming the USU goal.
The goals came early and often for the Wolverines, who scored three in the first 26 minutes of play.
“In the first half we weren’t playing their forwards tight enough,” Lamara said. “So they were able to turn the ball on us – they simply got that step [on our defenders], and before you know it, it’s 3-0.”
The Ags were missing a key defender in Jake Lucas, who received a hairline fracture in his leg playing against BYU-Idaho.
Lamara said he was sorely missed, since Lucas is the team’s defensive go-to guy and would have been the primary defender to shut down the UVSC forwards.
Lucas will be out of action for a month.
USU got on the scoreboard late in the first half.
In the 38th minute, Potter found some space from 20 yards and buried a low drive inside the right post. With the score 3-1, it wasn’t enough to amount to a comeback as the Wolverines poured on six more goals.
Potter scored again from the penalty spot in the 86th minute.
From a captain’s perspective, Potter was optimistic about the game and the potential of his team.
“I don’t think skill-wise they’re better than us,” Potter said of UVSC. “They started about two weeks, three weeks before us. You could see it.
“You could see the organization, you could see the communication – things that I’m confident that we have the players to do – easy. We’re just not fit yet, and not in tune yet.”
Potter said conditioning was also a factor.
“We started off slow, so we were playing like we were tired, and in the end we were tired, so we just stopped playing,” he said.
Up next for the Aggies is Weber State, who, along with UVSC, went to the NIRSA National Championship tournament last season.
It will be another stiff test for the young Aggie team.
“Weber is Weber,” Lamara said. “They’ve pretty much played about 15 years together. They are one of the older teams in the league. They are a quality squad and they’re probably going to be just as tough as UVSC.”
Lamara said both WSU and UVSC play the same type of game.
“UVSC went to nationals last year and they have a good squad this year,” he said. “We’re probably looking at the same thing again.”
Potter feels that it’s good to be playing such quality teams at this point in the season. His thought is that now is the time for the Ags to find their mistakes and correct them before tournament play.
“[Playing Weber] will show us what we need to improve on,” he said. “It will show us where our weaknesses are. If you don’t know them, you can’t fix them.”
The club soccer team has a couple days of practice to work on some of those weaknesses found against UVSC before it is tested again against Weber.
But Lamara is confident his team won’t have another poor performance like the game from Wednesday.
“I can tell you right now that the guys will play better against Weber,” he said.
For those interested, the match against Weber State will be Friday at 6 p.m. at Tower Field.
The Aggies also have a game at Tower Field on Saturday at noon against Salt Lake Community College.
-stmcallister@gmail.com