Battling one of the WAC’s top programs, the SUU soccer team secured an important scoreless draw against Seattle on Thursday.
The game was a defensive battle throughout in a rematch of last season’s WAC Tournament first round.
SUU sat back and defended against the Redhawks, keeping one of the league’s best off the scoresheet for the entire match.
While the T-birds did not generate much offensively, they played fantastic defense. The home team absorbed the pressure well, as Seattle recorded 14 total shot attempts (8 on target) but could not break down the Southern Utah defensive wall.
Jenna Grider, Rylan Tebbs, Adaleyo Oguntade, and Aubrey Murray each played the full 90 minutes for SUU in the draw. Darya Mosallaei notched her fourth shutout of the season in net, recording seven saves.
Coach Edwards post-match
Following the match, I spoke with SUU head coach Kai Edwards, who gave his thoughts on the team’s performance.
Question: Coach, what are your overall thoughts on a solid 0-0 draw with Seattle, who is generally one of the top two of three teams in the WAC?
Edwards: They’re definitely one of the best teams and we’ve never gotten a point off of Seattle U and have definitely never shut them out. So, to shut them out, it took everything, and the team made some great plays and defended well. You’ve got to do absolutely everything when you play a team of that caliber.
Question: You mentioned the defending. There was a lot of good team and individual defending, what were your thoughts on the defending and getting the shutout?
Edwards: We went into the match, we trained all week, and we said, ‘We have to be in control when they have the ball, right?’ Because we knew they were going to have the ball, and we shrunk the field a bit. We defended about 60 percent of the field and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to stand here, you’re going to get shots and chances, we’re just going to do everything we can, and if we can sneak a goal or set piece, great.’ But a point versus the historically top four we will take any day.
Question: It’s your first point in conference play. You’ve got five matches to go, what are your thoughts on the rest of the conference season and with UVU coming on Sunday?
Edwards: It’s great, it gets easier. It gets much easier (Edwards said sarcastically). I think it’s one of those… for Southern Utah to get a shutout versus Seattle U, you enjoy today. UVU will be there on Sunday, we’ll deal with them tomorrow night. But right now, you get a shutout and, in our program, the team gets donuts because of the hole. So, they’ll have donuts tomorrow, they’ll have the day off and you know, we do our thing, and we try to go again versus UVU.
Up next
Southern Utah (2-6-4, 0-1-1 WAC) will host the reigning WAC regular season champions Utah Valley next.
The T-birds and Wolverines will battle on Sunday, October 6, with the game set to kick off at 1 p.m. MT. The match can be seen on ESPN+.
Photo credit @margauxxpics
