By Jonathan Boldt
Assistant Sports Editor
While the Utah Valley University ladies soccer team is talented, the numbers don’t lie. After winning the exhibition opener against Westminster and the home opener against Portland State, the Wolverines have been outscored 10-1 and have not won a game.
The Wolverines have compiled a 1-4 preseason record, including a 1-3 record at home.
In the majority of statistical categories, the opposition has outperformed and outdone the Wolverines.
UVU has scored just five goals on 66 attempts while the opposition has tallied 12 goals on 93 tries. Overall they have been outscored 12-5 and out-shot by 5.2 attempts per game. The Wolverines have assisted on three out of five goals this season. Opponenets have assisted on 11 of their 12 scores.
Slow starts have come back to bite them as well, scoring zero goals while being bested by six goals against the opponents in the first half. Shalayne Janis is the only player to have more than one goal, highlighting the lack of depth and experience on this year’s team.
A bright spot for the Wolverines has been the play of the goalkeepers. Lauren Sack has recorded 28 saves and Jadeshia Colebrook has four, combining for a 32-26 lead in defending the net.
“Early in the season our goal keeping will be important,” Wolverines head coach Brent Anderson earlier in the season. “We have a young team and it will take some time to figure it all out.”
Time may be catching up as the Wolverines near conference play.
“We like to play these tougher games to start to get us ready for our conference games,” Anderson said. “It helps us to be more sharp later on.”
This young team has a lot to work on, but the key word is “young”. The Wolverines have 12 total freshmen with nine true freshman in the mix. Anderson has a lot of time to work out the kinks in the long run, but for this year’s seniors, time is running out.
UVU is nearly a third of the way through this year’s schedule and are quickly coming up on the games that will determine their postseason chances. Those chances will be greatly enhanced by getting more scoring chances.
The opposition has scored on just over seven percent of their shots on goal while UVU has scored on a little over 12 percent of their opportunities. They are getting good looks.
They just need more of them.
“Being aggressive and getting good scoring opportunities will be very important,” Anderson said.
Jonathan Boldt can be reached at jonboldt@gmail.com
Follow him on Twitter @jboldt24
