Winless road trip
Two road games against two Pac-10 teams produced similar problems and the same results as the USU women’s soccer team finished its weekend trip to Oregon 0-2.
Going into the matches this weekend, USU soccer head coach Heather Cairns said she knew this was going to be one of the toughest set of road matches all season and her team would have to play cohesively to win. After falling to Oregon 1-0 on Friday and 2-1 to Oregon State on Sunday, Cairns said her team failed to pull together to play the level of soccer needed to beat teams from a talented Pac-10 conference.
“We’re still looking to gel as a team,” Cairns said. “Unfortunately, in order to beat one of those two teams we were going to have to be on the same page more than we were.”
Cairns said part of the struggles for her team is the number of newcomers, which accounts for nearly half the team. This inexperience has caused some problems in helping the team play in a confident, unified manner, she said, which was evident in both losses.
The match against Oregon proved to be an offensive struggle for the Aggies, where the Ducks outshot USU 17-5. Even with the return of senior forward Candice Clark, one of the Aggies’ top offensive threats last season, USU was only able to get off three shots in the first half, compared to Oregon’s 11. In the 19th minute of play, the Ducks used a series of effective crosses to score what would end up being the game-winning goal.
“They were just good,” Cairns said of Oregon. “We couldn’t break them down. We defended them a lot that game. They were technically and tactically so good.”
At the half, Cairns made a change in the net, providing freshman goalkeeper Molli Merrill her first minutes in an Aggie uniform. Merrill made two saves and senior goalkeeper Ali Griffin made five saves in the first half. While Griffin has been the defensive mainstay for the past few seasons, she won’t be around next season, Cairns said.
“Getting Molli experienced this year is a priority for us and bottom line is she’s been playing well,” Cairns said. “She’s earned some minutes. I don’t expect it to be a two goalkeeper setup, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get our goalkeeper experienced.
Cairns said her team played better the second half, getting off two close shots and tightening defensively, but the damage was already done.
Where the Aggies struggled to produce offensively against Oregon, their defense had a similar breakdown against Oregon State, Cairns said. Just five minutes into the game, the Beavers had a mark on the board after a diving header by midfielder Rachael Axon.
“It was literally the other team’s first shot of the game,” Cairns said.
Adding to the defensive letdown that allowed the first point, Oregon State followed their early score with another goal in the 24th minute. While the Aggies kept up better offensively with the Beavers than they did against Oregon, they couldn’t land a shot and OSU ended the half with a comfortable 2-0 lead.
—seth.h@aggiemail.usu.edu