Summary:
On Thursday, Sept. 29, Utah soccer traveled to Tempe, Ariz. to compete against Arizona State. Before the first half of the game, the Utes got a free kick and they saw their chance to take the lead. As Paolo Van Der Veen kicked the ball, senior Katie Rogers finished off the shot, giving her team a 1-0 lead going into the second half. Unfortunately, ASU got a shot in as well, taking the game into overtime. At the end, the two team tied the match 1-1.
Standout Player:
After scoring the first goal of the game, all Rogers felt was relief. Thinking that the day would never come, Rogers scored the first goal of her senior season. After the serve from Van Der Veen, Rogers had to get a piece of the action, and it paid off. Though she is happy that she finally scored a goal, Rogers is just grateful the ball went into the net, giving her team the lead against their opponent.
Head coach Rich Manning was really proud of Rogers after the goal, noting that she had been working on headers for quite a bit, and putting on in right before halftime helped give her that boost going into the second half. Though she had to cover a lot of ground on the field to keep up with ASU, Manning felt that she did a great job stepping up for the team and creating opportunities to score more goals.
Improvements:
Manning feels that while his team has been working on possession and attack, it needs to be more consistent and focused. During the game, Manning noticed that some moments showed how well the team was working on keeping the ball, but in other moments, it wasn’t quite there.
Rogers, on the other hand, feels like her team needs to work on its composure. At times Rogers noticed that players we getting a bit frantic, worrying too much about the results of the game and what it takes to get there, and they lost control of the ball.
Coach’s Corner:
“I thought we competed very well. It is another tough environment and we did some really good things defensively and scored a good goal and I was proud of the players that really stepped up their game. I’m just proud of the team on how they played tonight.” — Manning said.
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