Last week, the Utes won their first game of the season, taking a 4-0 victory over Weber State (Aug. 19), but was handed their first loss, 0-3, two days later against Minnesota (Aug. 21).
Senior Taylor Slattery felt that her team was able to keep up with San Diego in the first half of the game. However, towards the end, it became increasingly frustrating when she and her team were unable to capitalize on scoring opportunities and keep up with Minnesota.
“I think once they got a 2-0 lead, it would have been easy to come back from that,” Slattery said. “But, once they got that third score, I felt like we just needed to keep pushing to go for it.”
As the Utes prepare for their game this Friday (Aug. 26) against San Diego, head coach Rich Manning added to Slattery’s statement, saying that he felt they played a solid team, and it brought in “new dimensions of athleticism, aggressiveness and good soccer.” But it revealed some things his team needs to work on for its game against San Diego.
“I think we have to be more aggressive and improve some things defensively,” Manning said. “They need to come up to speed with covering each other and understanding everyone’s role and what they are doing, and obviously we want to score some goals.”
When the Utes played San Diego in 2015, they won the match 2-1, and according to Manning, this was one of the most memorable games, considering Utah lost at BYU, 0-2, two days before.
“We had a lot of adversity going on, especially after traveling” Manning said. “It was a really hard and hot game. We really showed some grit and won a really tight game, so there are good memories, but I know it will be another tough battle.”
Last season, Utah made its move during the second half of the game. In the 51st minute, junior Mariah Elmer found the lower left corner of the net and took her shot, and gave the Utes a 1-0 lead. This was also Elmer’s first goal of the season.
Shortly after, in the 55th minute, Elmer made her move again, scoring the second goal of the game, assisted by Slattery, bringing the lead to 2-0.
After San Diego scored its first goal of the game in the 84th minute, the Utes held USD off for the last five minutes of the game, and they won 2-1.
Although those Sunday games can be somewhat of a drag for the entire team, Slattery felt her team did really well last year against San Diego. They were able to come out, fight and get the win.
She believes her team can win again this year.
“We just need to erase this loss [against Minnesota] from our minds, but still keep it in the back of our minds,” Slattery said. “We need to use it as fuel for our fire so we can play harder this weekend and not give up.”
Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. MST at Ute Field.
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