Women’s soccer closes out season at home
The Utah State women’s soccer team has had a real Cinderella season this year. Although the Aggies were projected to finish at the bottom of the Big West Conference this season, they have proved everyone wrong and have come out on top.
If they win their last four games, including the two this weekend against Cal State Fullerton and UC Riverside at home, they will be first in the conference.
But that isn’t what they are thinking about, at least that isn’t the only thing they are thinking about, as they head into this weekend.
“I liked being ranked last,” said goalie Megan Mills. “It has made us work harder. We really believe that we can win. Nobody else would believe in us, so we had to.”
After a tough weekend, losing to Long Beach and tying with UC Irvine, the Aggies are looking to refocus and regroup before going into the games this weekend.
“I just told them to relax and refocus,” said USU Head Coach Heather Cairns. “It helped us in our game against Irvine on Sunday. These last four games are huge for us so we want to win, both teams will be hard, tough battles.”
Last year against Fullerton the Aggies lost 2-1. They also lost to Riverside in overtime 2-3.
Senior Amber Tracy says that in order to win they need the “whole team to come out and play hard. We need to defend and attack as a team, look for each other.”
Mills said, “We are going to try a harder warm-up and try to get it going from the start. We will have to capitalize on opportunities.”
Cairns wants to see the team have high energy and defend as a group.
“We really need to find ways to score,” she said. “At the beginning of the season it was either we were dominating the game or we were being dominated. These games won’t be like that. There will be more limited chances to score and we will have to adjust to that back and forth tempo that I think these games will be.”
The team has had some stellar performances from players such as Mills and junior Nicole Fuez. The defense has also been great this season, Cairns said, with some great performances from her back line.
“I just hope that we can keep it going,” Mills said. It would be awesome to get into conference. I want to get first, of course, but it would be great just to get in and keep our season going for that much longer.”
Tracy, a senior, said she is looking to leave everything out on the field.
“I really want to just enjoy the rest of the season,” she said. “It would be great to go to conference this year, because we have never been before, and I think we can do it. That is what makes this season different from the last one. Last year we knew we could play against these tough teams and possibly beat them. This year we know we can beat them. That is what made the difference, this belief that we could win.”
The team is grateful for all the support it has gotten this season from the fans. The Aggies are hoping to see tons of people out to support them for their last two home games and send them off to conference with a lot of support.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu