This Thursday, the Blitzz will play a closed-door scrimmage against Utah's select men's team. During that game, coach Chris Agnello is hoping to have two free-agent forwards in town for a tryout.
For a team that scored 12 goals in three games prior to Saturday, the need for more forwards didn't seem obvious. Agnello's reasoning became very clear Saturday when his team took on San Diego.
The Blitzz squandered several excellent scoring chances throughout the game, and the Gauchos made them pay by rallying for a 2-1 victory at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
"We ended up with half a dozen good chances, and in order to put away teams you have to score those goals," Agnello said.
During Friday's game with San Diego, the Blitzz finished those chances and rolled to the 3-0 victory in the U.S. Open Cup qualifier.
In the rematch 16 hours later, Utah appeared headed toward a similar result when Fadi Afash ran onto a gentle Will Cummins' through ball in the box and chipped it over San Diego's charging keeper just three minutes into the game.
Fresh off surrendering three goals to Utah the night before, and six in a game two weeks ago, it would've been easy for San Diego's defense to think "here we go again." There's a reason, however, the Gauchos are atop the Western Conference standings right now. They're a gritty bunch who kept working.
San Diego's Herculez Gomez, who spent last season with the Los Angeles Galaxy of the MLS, equalized in the 78th minute by heading in a quality service from Steve Pedicini. Utah keeper Leo Zamora, a Chilean native who the Blitzz signed last week, came racing off his line to intercept the cross, but Gomez snuck in front to head it in.
Less than five minutes later, San Diego shocked Utah's defense again when Chai Balderas lobbed a beautiful pass to Zareh Akbar, who tracked it down, dribbled around the charging Zamora and slotted it into the empty net.
Utah had tried an offside trap on Akbar, but Jacobi Goodfellow who was standing 20 yards away held Akbar onside.
Even though the Blitzz spilt their weekend series with San Diego — which was also the case when the two teams met two weeks ago in California — Agnello had a positive spin for his team's collapse.
"We're not disappointed with the weekend; we got the big win (Friday)," said the Blitzz coach. "I think this was a preview of the Western Conference final."
Utah (3-3-2) returns to action on May 28 when it is host to Colorado Springs of the PDL.
ENDLINES: Midfielder Ryan Youngblood earned his first Blitzz start filling in for the injured Rich Breza (hamstring). Javier Carrasco, who started Friday's game, wasn't even in town Saturday. He was back in his native El Paso, Texas receiving his bachelor's degree from UTEP. Afash left the game in the 52nd minute because of a minor injury.
E-mail: jedward@desnews.com