It had been five years since the BYU Cougars had dropped a match to a team from the WAC, and they didn’t intend on ending that streak against the Vandals.
The Idaho women’s soccer team spent Tuesday night in Provo, Utah and fell to the Cougars 5-0.
“It took the wind out of our sails,” Idaho coach Pete Showler said. “We’d been under a lot of pressure, but we dealt with it and dealt with it well.”
From the start Idaho struggled to gain possession and players were put on their heels by a constant flow of BYU attacks. The Vandal defense did its best to fend off the Cougars and held a shutout until minutes before halftime when BYU’s Jaiden Thornock put through a rocket from the corner of the box. From there the flood gates were opened, and the Vandals never had a chance.
BYU Junior Carlee Payne scored seven minutes into the second half, and from there the were Vandals on their way to a five-goal deficit.
“The things we’d been doing well in the first, we stopped doing in the second, and we can’t allow that to happen. You can’t let that happen against a team of that quality,” Showler said.
The Cougars held the Idaho offense stagnant by dominating midfield possession and keeping the Vandals from sustaining any kind of offensive build up. As a result BYU goalkeeper McKinzie Olson was hardly tested. The Vandals took just five shots, and only three on goal.
On the other hand it was a long night for Vandal goal keeper Caroline Towles. She kept her side level with the Cougars until the 44th minute of the match, but there was only so much she and the defense could do when the Cougar attack just kept coming.
Towles ended up with four saves while the Cougars got off 25 shots, putting 12 of them on target and five in the net.
The Vandals will return to the Pacific Northwest Friday to face the Gonzaga Bulldogs in Spokane before returning to Moscow on Sunday for a match-up against Eastern Washington.
“That’s what’s going to be a measure of where this team is,” Showler said. “We’ve got to put that performance behind us, then step on the pitch Friday and prove we’re better than that result.”