BYU women’s soccer team advances to Sweet 16 with 1-0 victory over USC
BYU women’s soccer is Sweet once again.
A goal from senior Bella Folino and another shutout performance were enough to send the No. 1-seed Cougars to their third-straight NCAA Sweet 16 with a 1-0 victory over No. 8-seed USC.
“USC is a fantastic team,” said BYU head coach Jennifer Rockwood. “They’ve had a great season and are very talented and well coached. They were defensively really solid in the first half even though I thought we had a lot of the run of play. It was hard for us to get in behind them and get in the box to get a good look at the goal. At halftime we just talked about being a little bit more direct in getting in the box by moving the ball, getting into the assist zone and getting it wide.”
That advice paid off in the 58th minute when senior Kendell Petersen started the scoring sequence with a long pass from the left side of the goal box to the right side and a waiting Brecken Mozingo. Mozingo collected, then sent a low pass directly to the feet of Folino who collected, turned, and smashed a shot from eight yards out into the net for her seventh goal on the year.
“Petey had the ball and I know that Petey likes to cross the ball,” Folino said. “So Petey crossed it to Brecken and I found myself open in the box, took a touch, and hit it as hard as I could
.”
The Cougars had stifled the Trojan attack to start the second half; USC had zero shots through the first 23 minutes of the of the period. But after the goal, the visitors stepped up the pressure. The Trojans totaled eight shots over the last 22 minutes of the game, equaling their total from the previous 68 minutes of the contest.
BYU freshman goalkeeper Lynette Hernaez made two saves within a minute of each other midway through the second period, including staying home on a tough low shot from a sprinting Simone Jackson to preserve the lead.
The Cougars continued to feel the heat right down to the wire. With one minute remaining, a USC corner kick led to a scrum in the box that saw a Trojan player go down and then a shot by Aaliyah Farmer that skipped off the top of the crossbar and out of harm’s way to preserve the BYU win.
“After we scored, the game opened up a little bit more in transition,” Rockwood said. “USC has some extremely fast, athletic, quick, dangerous players. But we held strong. We bent a little bit at the end but didn’t break.”
Hernaez has now posted clean sheets in the first pair of NCAA Tournament games of her career after shutting out Utah State in the first round last week. The freshman finished with six saves on the night.
“Lynette has come a long way over the season; she’s worked really hard,” Rockwood said. “She’s a big presence in the back and came up with some fantastic saves. You have to rely on your keeper to keep you in games and that’s what she was able to do for us tonight.”
With the win, the Cougars advance to the NCAA Tournament third round for the ninth time in program history. BYU has now won its last 11 postseason home games by a combined 35-2 margin; the Cougars last lost at home in the NCAA tourney in a 2012 Elite Eight contest against North Carolina 2-1 in double overtime.
“We tend to get tough draws every year, but to be a No. 1-seed and play a team as good and solid as Utah State with a very RPI and then having to play a team that’s ranked and finished third in the Pac-12, one of the hardest teams in the country, it was a tough first two matches for us,” Rockwood said.
“But certainly our crowd and being here was an advantage for us. Even though the competition was extremely tough, you’re in the NCAA, all the teams are good, all the teams have had tremendous success, but it’s making us better and stronger and is building our confidence as we move forward.”
BYU will next face No. 5-seed Michigan State on Saturday at 6 p.m. MST at South Field after the Spartans defeated No. 4-seed Harvard 1-0 in Provo earlier Thursday to advance to their first-ever Sweet 16. BYU is 4-0 all-time against Michigan State, including a 2-0 victory the last time the two teams met in 2008.
