Hosting the largest crowd BYU’s South Field has ever seen means BYU had a lot of expectations to live up to Tuesday night, July 15.
BYU men’s soccer hosted the Utah Blitzz in a rematch that would resolve the unsettled feelings in the teams’ last encounter, which ended in a sudden death overtime tie. Resolved it was.
Tuesday night’s game was tied at the end of regulation time. Soccer officials announced three minutes of extra time. The Utah Blitzz scored the game-winning goal in the fourth minute of extra time.
“We did a good job keeping them out of net for 93 minutes,” said BYU head coach Chris Watkins. “It’s unfortunate the referee decided to go 94 on us.”
For the Cougars, losing Tuesday night’s game brought back bad memories of their 12-game losing streak. That’s a memory they didn’t want to remember so soon.
“The third minute of [extra time] had past,” BYU assistant coach Brian Jolley said. “When we reached four minutes, and they scored, I was disappointed. But we can’t put the blame there.”
The blame, some say, is on the Cougars who played an average game against an above average team. The ball could often be found near BYU’s goal.
“We weren’t firing on all cylinders,” Watkins said.
They may have only been firing one: Kenny Ojuka.
“Kenny played a very good game,” Watkins said. “[The Blitzz] put four different defenders on him. He did a great job no matter who they put on him.”
BYU needed 10 more players like Ojuka to pull of a win — especially in the goal.
Praised by coaches in last weekend’s encounter against the Boulder Rapids Reserves, Mike Lacey couldn’t get the ball to stay in his gloves.
The 36-minute goalkeeper problems foreshadowed how the game would end. The Blitzz headed a ball that slipped out of Lacey’s gloves. The course of the ball was en route for the open BYU net. Luckily for the Cougars, Curt Graham stepped in a kicked the ball out.
In the 94th minute, another shot that bounced off Lacey fell in the middle of crowd of blue and white jerseys. Lacey scrambled for the ball but got beat by the Blitzz who toed the ball in for the tie breaker.
“If only our goalkeeper would’ve cleaned that up — his little mistake,” Watkins said. “But they pounced on it.”
A few speckled Blitzz fans in the crowd were the only ones cheering. The rest of the crowd fell silent.
“I’m not sure we deserved to win,” Watkins said.
The players agreed.
“We had our moments but we didn’t put them away,” Matt Affleck said. “We didn’t deserve to win.”
BYU (2-13-1) is off to California this weekend for its final two games of the season. The Cougars will play the Orange County Blue Stars (12-4-0) on Friday, July 18, and the Fresno Fuego (13-4-0) on Saturday, July 19.
The team is optimistic about its final games of the season.
“We’re at the point now that we can compete with anyone in this league,” Watkins said. “We’ve got two guys that can play at their level. By next season, I hope to have 11.”
