Taking a break from its regular season lineup, the Utah soccer team played Beijing Normal University on Tuesday, Aug. 30 at Ute Field, and the Utes took a 5-1 victory.
For Beijing Normal University, this was its last game in a four-game run against a Pac-12 school. The Chinese team has played USC (L, 5-1), UCLA (L, 7-0) and Arizona State (W, 1-0) while in the United States and it finished its trip by playing against Utah.
Utah had a quick start to the match and got its first goal in the first half of the game. Beijing offered good pressure against the Utes, but it wasn’t enough as Utah eventually got the win.
“It was a great opportunity to be an international game,” said head coach Rich Manning. “We were really excited and honored for that and also to kind of test ourselves. [Beijing Normal University] is a super technical team so they really tested our ability to defend and stay organized. We scored some very good goals and some players really stepped up.”
In the first half, there was a lot of back and forth play. Utah had multiple shots, but none reached the back of the net. In the 14th minute, the Utes got their first goal of the game from sophomore midfielder Paola Van Der Veen after a cross from sophomore forward/defender Max Flom.
In the 22nd minute, Van Der Veen got another opportunity to give Utah another score in a free kick, but was wide and failed to get the goal.
Freshman forward Ireland Dunn gave the Utes their second goal of the game in the 38th minute, giving Utah a 2-0 lead over Beijing.
Going into the second half, Utah and Beijing started the same as the first half with good possession, coverage, and pressure. Beijing tried to get its first goal of the game, and it applied good pressure against the Utes in the 54th minute.
Van Der Veen scored her second goal of the game in the 59th minute of the game off of a free kick, bringing the score to 3-0.
In the 64th minute, the Utes extended their lead to 4-0 when freshman forward Ella Ballstaedt scored. Shortly after that, freshman forward/defender Holly Daugirda scored Utah’s final goal of the game.
Beijing finally got on the score board in the 74th minute, cutting Utah’s lead to four goals.
“I think we played a good game,” Van Der Veen said. “[Beijing Normal University] was a good team. This was our third game in five days, but overall we did a good job.”
Up next for the Utes, the team will stay on the Ute Field to compete against BYU on Monday, Sept. 5.
“We want to own the state and win,” Manning said. “We need to do whatever it take.”
Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m.
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