By Cory McKendrick, USU Eastern Sports Information Contributor
The Utah State University Eastern women’s soccer team had its first game of conference on Durrant Field Thursday afternoon against the College of Southern Nevada Coyotes. In a physical, well-fought battle, the match ended in a draw knotted up at 2-2. The match went to two decisive overtime periods where neither team could put the game away with a goal.
The first half was filled with great soccer. “We played 45 minutes of excellent soccer in the first half,” said Head Coach Ammon Bennett. “We controlled possession the majority of time and passed well with chances to have had the score be 3-0 in our favor, had a few scoring opportunities went our way.”
Late in the first half, in the 38th minute, Morgan Cragun had a corner kick that she played a right to left bending pass that Logan Duran perfectly timed for a header past the Coyote keeper for a 1-0 lead.
The Eagles took the 1-0 lead into the break. CSN responded out of the half in the 15th minute and scored their first goal to even the match at one apiece. Not even ten minutes later in the 23rd minute, Duran and Cragun got to work again offensively, this time Duran centering a ball near the net that got mishandled by the Coyote keeper Cragun was right there to finish the play and find the back of the net to regain the lead for USU Eastern.
With the score in favor of the Eagles, 2-1, and roughly 15 minutes left to play in regulation, the Coyotes answered with what would be the last goal in the game for either team. The first overtime didn’t feature many close scoring plays and came to a close with the score unchanged. In the second overtime, CSN had a chance to ice the game, but was thwarted by an impressive penalty kick save from Eagle keeper Meg Edwards. The final horn sounded in the second overtime, bringing the final decision to a draw.
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- Photos by Jeff Barrett
