By McCall Knowlton
San Diego State knocked the BYU women”s soccer team out of the Mountain West Conference Tournament in Las Vegas on Wednesday.
The Aztecs struck as a force to be reckoned with as they overtook the Cougar defense in the 2-0 shutout.
BYU”s first-round loss will be remembered as one of the biggest upsets of the 2005 tournament as the Cougars came into the competition ranked No. 14 nationally.
The Cougars outshot the Aztecs 13-7 and also had a chance to come back with seven corner kicks during the night compared to the Aztecs” one.
“I”m disappointed in our performance tonight,” said head coach Jennifer Rockwood. “We didn”t come out prepared.”
The Cougars entered the tournament seeded No. 3 in the MWC behind No.1 Utah and No. 2 UNLV. San Diego State came in seeded No. 6 but will now advance to the next round leaving the Cougars behind.
SDSU has a dominant offense with forwards Erika Sutton and Lisa Nielson, who scored goals for the Aztecs in the 30th and 65th minutes of play. Both goals came off of quick plays, with Sutton”s goal coming from 60 yards out and Nielsen”s goal coming from a cross over pass at eight yards out of the goal.
San Diego”s goalkeeper, Cat Burson, offset BYU”s charge with four saves in Wednesday”s match-up.
“San Diego State played hard, out hustled us, and wanted it more,”
Rockwood blames the Cougars pre-conference success for the loss and the team”s struggle with conference match-ups.
BYU had planned on going to the NCAA tournament and hoped to host one of the early rounds. But now they will have to wait and see what happens with other conference and national teams.
“We hope we”ll still be going to the NCAAs, but we need to regroup, start over, and refocus,” Rockwood said.
BYU”s MWC record 4-1-2 was just not enough to psyche out SDSU who came in at 2-3-2 in MWC play. BYU played SDSU back in October and tied 1-1. The regular season game marked one of only three times the Cougars tied this season.
The winner of the MWC Tournament will automatically advance to the NCAA Tournament, Nov. 10, while the Cougars will await the announcement of an at large option to join in the competition.
