The USU Women’s Soccer team ended their regular season on senior day with a 2-0 victory over Boise State. On Halloween afternoon at Chuck & Gloria Bell Field, Utah State won its 16th game and clinched its record number of wins this season. The Aggies were coming off a difficult tie with Nevada on the road and faced the Broncos, who were on an 11-game winning streak. With all these games behind them, Utah State ends on a high note with a win and a two-year contract extension for head coach Manny Martins.
Things Get Better And Better
Things improved for the Aggies when they learned their close rival, Wyoming, settled for a close scoreless draw on the road against Colorado State. The results meant that Utah State was able to leap over the Rams into the second spot in the conference standings and thus secure a first-round bye in the Mountain West Tournament.
If Colorado State had won, USU would have taken the 3rd spot, which would have entailed a first-round Sunday afternoon match at the Mountain West Conference Tournament. Now, the Aggies won’t have to travel to San Diego until Monday and will then await the winner of Sunday’s showdown between No. 3 Colorado State, whose record is (11-4-4, 7-1-3), and No. 6 Nevada (6-12-2, 4-5-2) in Wednesday’s semifinal round.
How Things Stand Now
The other first-round matchup will pit the 4th-ranked San Diego State (7-7-4, 5-2-3) against the 5th-ranked UNLV (7-9-2, 5-4-1). The winner of this match will get top-seeded Boise State (15-3-2, 8-1-2) in the other semifinal. The Broncos captured their first outright Mountain West title. USU went 3-0-2 this season against the other teams that qualified for the Mountain West tournament.
In their matchup against the Broncos, USU certainly made it a memorable Senior Day when Rine Yonaha played a short corner kick to fellow senior Kylie Olsen, who whipped a cross pass into the 6-yard box that graduate student Alex Day headed into the back of the net in convincing fashion in the 22nd minute.
The Final Goal of the Season
In the 67th minute, another set piece turned into a scoring opportunity for Utah State. Freshman forward Austin Miller took a shot directly off of a corner kick, which was deflected by the keeper to the feet of freshman forward Ellie Hendrix, who delivered it into the back of the net with her right foot.
The Aggies outscored the Broncos and outdid themselves defensively to maintain their two-goal advantage. They held the Broncos to one shot and zero corner kicks in the second half. USU outshot BSU 13-5 and finished with a 5-2 edge in corner kicks. The hosts didn’t even allow BSU star forward Carly Cross, the conference’s leading goal scorer with 10, with a single attempted shot.
Senior Night
The Aggie nine seniors are a big reason the Aggies outscored the opposition by a whopping 29-4 margin during their eight regular season matches at Bell Field. USU, which notched its program-record-extending 13th shutout, has outscored all foes 58-13 so far during the 2024 campaign.
USU’s keeper, Cora Brendle, was only called upon to make three saves, but one was huge. The graduate transfer denied Boise State Sophie Drown of a header goal with an athletic punch save over the crossbar with 10 minutes remaining in the opening half.
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