The Arizona soccer team suffered another close loss, this time a 1-0 affair at the hands of No. 15 Brigham Young in Provo, Utah.
The only goal of the game came off the head of Cougars sophomore forward Katie Fellows, who headed the ball into the net in the 72nd minute. The ball came in via a corner kick from senior defender Haylee Cuthbert.
“”I thought we played well in the first half and took better care of the ball (than in the Portland game). We just didn’t finish any of our chances.””
“”In the second half, we didn’t do a good enough job defensively,”” UA head coach Dan Tobias said in a press release. “”We were out-shot 11 to two in (the) second half and they (had) five corner kicks and eight in the game. It is not a coincidence that they scored off a corner kick. It came on a ball that got knocked around and bounced around, and when our player tried to clear it, the ball went off our player’s foot into the goal.””
The game was a hard-hitting contest with 50-50 balls and aggressive fouls, as Arizona (6-4-0) had nine fouls and BYU (8-1-1) racked up 15.
The Wildcats, who have been a first-half team this season, with 10 of their 13 goals in the first 45 minutes, played true to form, putting out a better showing in the first half. They took four shots, including one on goal, compared to BYU’s three, all of which were on goal, but the Wildcats finished with just six shots to the Cougars’ 14.
“”I thought we played well in the first half and took better care of the ball (than in the Portland game),”” Tobias said. “”We just didn’t finish any of our chances.””
Sophomore goalkeeper Chelsea McIntyre played a solid game, making seven saves.
In the 24th minute of the contest, sophomore forward Gianna DeSaverio collided with the BYU goal keeper, junior Erika Woodbury, in a one-on-one situation in front of the goal. After that collision, DeSaverio missed the rest of the half, but she came back with her knee wrapped up for the second half.
The last-stitch effort for Arizona came with three minutes left in the second half when DeSaverio passed off a ball to sophomore
forward Sally Thurner, but Thurner kicked the ball over the goal mouth. After that play, BYU was able to run the clock out for the win.
The attendance of the game was 3,306 people, three times as large as the biggest Arizona home game in history, 1,010 people at Friday’s game against Portland.
Arizona will take to the field again Thursday against Cal State-Fullerton at 7 p.m. in Fullerton, Calif.
– Compiled from a press release at www.arizonaathletics.com.