Price, UTAH – The Utah State University Eastern women's soccer team (2-1) had their first game of conference on Durrant Field Thursday afternoon, September 26, 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. According to Head Coach
Ammon Bennett, "We played 45 minutes of excellent soccer in the first half. We controlled possession the majority of time and passed well, with chances to have had the score be 3 to 0 in our favor, had a few scoring opportunities went our way." Late in the first half, the 38
th minute,
Morgan Cragun had a corner kick that she played a right to left bending pass that
Logan Duran perfectly timed a header past the Coyote keeper for a 1 to 0 lead.
The Eagles took the 1-0 lead into the break. CSN responded out of the half in the 15
th minute and scored their first goal to even match at 1 apiece. Not even ten minutes later in the 23
rd 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 too 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.
The USU Eastern women's soccer team will be back on Durrant field on Saturday, September 28, as they square off in another Scenic West Athletic Conference contest against #6 (NJCAA national rankings) Snow College. Game start slated for 1 p.m.
