The Utah soccer team had control of its own destiny going into its final game of the regular season.
With a win, the Utes would lock up second place in the Mountain West Conference as well as a first round bye in the upcoming conference tournament. With a loss, Utah would have opened the door for No. 3 TCU.
But Utah stayed true to form Friday night and left Colorado Springs with a 2-1 victory and a first-round bye.
“First of all, full credit to Air Force for bringing it tonight in their last game of the season,” said head coach Rich Manning. “I don’t think it was our best performance overall, but once the game was tied, we really sharpened up and fortunately had enough time to create another goal.”
Freshman midfielder Mallory Mitamura opened up the scoring in the 32nd minute while on the receiving end of Amanda Sanchez’s pass, which cleared the Air Force back line. That left Mitamura one on one with the Air Force keeper. It was Mitamura’s second goal of the year.
“Amanda drew the defense in and I made an overlapping run,” Mitamura said. “She played a perfect ball over the defense to set me up. I was thinking, “This is a perfect setup, I have to make it.’ I was nervous, but I knew I had to score, so I just focused on putting the ball in the net.”
Air Force, however, showed its resilience in the 66th minute when Meagan Eissele managed to beat Utah goalie Hannah Turpen from 12 yards out to tie the contest at one goal apiece. The tie didn’t last long, however, as sophomore forward Lauren Hair buried her fifth goal of the season less than five minutes later.
Hair scored on a 15-yard blast into the bottom left-hand corner. Freshman defender Kellie Woodfield assisted the goal when she played a ball down the left sideline to Hair, who had made a run behind the Air Force defense.
“I think we are coming into every game with a winning attitude and confidence that we can beat anybody, and that is translating into winning soccer,” Hair said. “We just keep pushing hard. We still have our goals in front of us and we will do everything we can to reach them.”
It was Hair’s fourth game-winning goal of the season and her third in as many games.
“I don’t think Lauren’s game has changed very much,” Manning said. “She has played hard and done a lot of nice things all season. But there is no question that getting around the box and scoring a couple of goals really changed her confidence.”
Utah finished the regular season two games above .500 with a record of 10-8-2, which was good enough for No. 4 overall record in the conference, but behind Hair it has gone 5-2-0 in conference play.
“We have improved and learned how to win,” Hair said. “We are really pumped up for the tournament.”
Although the MWC Tournament will get under way Wednesday in Las Vegas, Utah will not play until Thursday due to its first round bye. The Utes will await the winner of the match between third-seeded TCU and San Diego State, which finished as the sixth seed.
Aaron SchwendimanAlthough Lauren Porter didn?t play in this weekends game she has been a key component to Utah?s defense. The Ute?s win over Air Force this weekend ensured them a second place spot in the Mountain West Conference.