BYU men’s soccer fell 3-1 to the Fresno Fuego on Saturday night.
In the eighth minute, Fresno came down the field and drilled a shot in the top left corner of the net giving it a 1-0 lead over the Cougars.
At the 14:07 mark Fresno was able to score its second goal of the game. This goal came off of a free kick and gave Fresno a 2-0 lead.
Despite going down by two goals, BYU maintained their composure and continued to play hard making aggressive plays and attacking.
In the 32nd minute senior captain Ethan Meyer was able to convert a goal cutting Fuego’s lead to one.
“We’ve talked about getting the ball wide, and it came to me,” Meyer said. “The guy cut off the line so I thought I’d just take it inside and I saw an opening and I just hit it and luckily it went into the corner just out of the goalie’s reach.”
Pedro Vasconcelos had an on target shot in the 42nd minute but the goalkeeper of Fuego made the save.
BYU went into halftime trailing the Fresno Fuego 2-1.
The second half featured a lot of fouls and aggressive play.
BYU’s Tanner Whitworth had a shot attempt in the 52nd minute that was a little high.
Fresno received a yellow card after BYU’s Connor Fordham was fouled by being pushed into BYU’s bench.
“It was a tough play, both going for the ball, it was 50-50, and I felt like he kind of put his shoulder into the side of me, but it’s okay not too bad,” Fordham said.
Meyer had a deep on target shot in the 79th minute, but Fresno’s keeper was able to make the save.
In the 88th minute Fresno had a breakaway score. This gave Fresno a 3-1 lead over the Cougars.
In stoppage time, Vasconcelos crossed the ball to Junior Lartey off of free kick who barely missed the shot off of a header.
This was the last play of the game and the BYU Cougars ultimately fell 3-1 to the Fresno Fuego.
“I think we got unlucky really, those two goals in the first half put us down so we kind of had to attack and they were able to sit back, but I thought we moved the ball well,” Fordham said. “I think we could probably work on our finishing, that would be the biggest thing, just finish and score that’s our biggest thing.”
Meyer was pleased with the energy the Cougars had tonight.
“After last game, we talked about coming out with a lot of energy and a lot of focus and we did that this game,” Meyer said. “We were much more fired up, had a lot more energy.”
BYU will travel to San Francisco for its next matchup.
