Soccer upsets no. 1 BYU 1-0
Saturday marked the first time in program history the USU women’s soccer team would face off against a No. 1 overall-ranked team. The Aggies made sure not to disappoint the record-setting crowd of 2,013 fans with a 1-0 win over previously undefeated BYU to improve to 3-5-1 on the season.
Despite both teams having chances to score in the first half, they entered halftime tied 0-0. Coming out of halftime, the Aggies played with a burst of energy and freshman midfielder Summer Diamond found the back of the net in the 51st minute on an assist from sophomore midfielder Kaylie Chambers.
“Kaylie Chambers made an awesome layoff to me,” Diamond said. “I just saw an opening that they were shifting one way, pushed it the other way and just hit it. So I mean, all credit to our movement off the ball.”
Following the go-ahead goal from Diamond, BYU continued to put pressure on the Aggie’s defense but were unable to score on graduate goalkeeper Diera Walton. Walton registered six saves in the game, four of which came in the second half.
“There’s a reason why she holds almost every record in the book for goalkeeping a Utah State,” Martins said. “She always comes up in the big games. Today, I don’t think she was as busy as she’s been before. But when she was called upon, she took care of business.”
Earlier in the year, Walton became Utah State’s all-time saves leader and following her shutout against the Cougars she became Utah State’s all-time leader in clean sheets.
Despite the attention that facing a highly-ranked team brought to the game, the Aggies remained focused during their preparation and were able to leave the field with a win.
“The preparation coming into this week was the same as any other week,” head coach Manny Martins said. “We continue to work on being us. The only difference is that I probably felt a little more excitement from the girls because obviously, it’s an in-state rival, it’s a number one team, but aside from that we didn’t change anything. We just did what we’ve been doing.”
“We don’t really listen to the hype,” Diamond said. “I mean, they were number one, but we come in thinking we can beat every team. So that’s what we came in with the mindset of.
Utah State’s win was the first since they defeated South Dakota State on September 1st and ended a three-game streak in which the Aggies did not score. Despite the cold stretch, coach Martins remained confident in his players.
“The funny thing is outcomes dictate perception. We’ve been playing this well for a number of games,” Martins said. “We just haven’t been clinical in front of the goal and we’ve made some mistakes. Today we put it all together.”
Moving forward, Martins hopes this game serves as a building block for success throughout the rest of the season.
“It’s exciting. I’m proud but I’m also humbled by it because it’s teams like this that help us prepare to achieve our goals,” Martins said. “We want to win, we want to win championships. We want to we want to get to the highest levels. We want to be able to compete with teams like this on a regular basis. Today we did and the goal is to continue to do it.”
The Aggies will look to build on their strong showing against BYU as they open up conference play against Air Force on the road on Sept. 21.