PROVO, Utah (July 10, 2010) – BYU nearly upset the reigning Premier Development League Champions Saturday night but lost 2-1. The Cougars are now 3-9-2 while the defending champs are 8-4-1.

“It’s hard because we did come back and fight,” said assistant coach, Chad Sackett. “That’s how it’s been the whole year. We get scored on and we seem to find a way to fight back, but not fight back enough. Our record doesn’t necessarily show our effort and what kind of a team
we are.”

In the 9th minute Ventura County’s, Sam Myerson scored a left-footed strike from the top of the box in to the left corner of the goal to put his team up 1-0. Just three minutes later a Cameron Lamb pass was stolen by Utahn, Jacob Hustedt who scored a breakaway in the lower right corner to give the Fusion a 2-0 lead after just two minutes.

In the 53rd minute Fusion midfielder, Manny Guzman recorded his second yellow card off the game, giving the Cougars a man advantage for the final 37 minutes of regulation.

The Cougars pounded away at goal with eight shots and seven corner kicks in the second half and scored a goal in the 67th minute by freshman midfielder, Matt Rider. It was his first career goal. The score came off a corner kick from Doug Clark and Rider cleaned up a loose ball in the penalty area scrum.

“It wasn’t much on my part,” said Rider. “Dougie put in a good cross, KC or Blake got a good head on it and I was just waiting on the goal line. I just went in and kicked it as hard as a I could.”

The Cougars had multiple looks at goal but came up empty, losing 2-1.

“That’s been the story of this season,” said Sackett. “Other teams seem to pick apart our mistakes and put goals away and we can’t do the same in certain situations. The effort is there. It’s close.”

“It’s frustrating and it’s hard to look at our record like that but like coach is saying, He’s glad we didn’t quit,” said Rider. “We’re not quitters. Hopefully our luck will start to turn.”Tweet