The bleachers were full and the team bench was eager for a win Tuesday night as the Wolverines fought a hard home game against the Weber State Wildcats. Despite multiple blocked kicks on defense and hard drives on offense, the Wolverines would fall in a 1-0 loss to put UVU’s record at 1-1-0.
The Wildcats kept possession of the ball for the majority of the first half while the Wolverines were short on chances to run the ball in for a goal.
“I do think we had our chances,” UVU head coach Brent Anderson said after the game. “We had some in the first half that we could have put away and changed the game.”
Despite the consistent possession the Wildcats had over the Wolverines, UVU’s goalkeeper Lauren Sack continued to block shots.
Ending the half, Utah Valley had four shots on goal to Weber’s eight, which were all blocked by Sack to keep game scoreless at the end of the first half.
“Lauren made some great saves,” Anderson said. “This game she was solid and confident, and directed the back-line really well, so I thought it was a great game for her.”
Sack finished with 11 saves and one goal allowed.
The second half started off with some excitement as UVU’s Haley Curtis dribbled the ball in for a 15-yard kick, only to overshoot just above the goal post.
“It did look at times that we maybe weren’t as confident in front of the goal as we should have been,” Anderson said. “We do need some players to step up and be a bit more dangerous.”
The Wolverines fought hard and tried to drive the ball to the goal, but the offensive rhythm never came for a Wolverines team still try to make up for nine graduate seniors’ worth of offense. During the four-minute mark, Weber’s forward Jessie Baddley scored a goal off a straight kick past Sack, eventually giving Weber the win.
“I don’t think we found a good rhythm, especially in the second half,” Anderson said. “We just couldn’t find the rhythms to get our forwards free and to get them with the ball faced up to the goal. So we’ll have to work on that this week as we prepare to play Wyoming.”
“If we start playing that ball at a better angle, we will have better success on the attack.”
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