NCAA soccer tournament: Santa Clara breaks own rule to beat BYU

Santa Clara topped No. 7 seed BYU 1-0 Friday night at South Field in the first round of the NCAA women’s soccer tournament, ending the Cougars’ season in a match that the host school saw ample chances go by the wayside.

“A very tough loss for us,” BYU coach Jennifer Rockwood said. “(I) felt that it wasn’t our best overall performance, but I felt that we still did enough to probably at least put one in the back of the net. … We had some really good opportunities. We only gave up one shot in the second half, and unfortunately that was the one that got us.”

The Cougars’ momentum swelled out of the halftime break, but BYU lost it in the 70th minute when Santa Clara senior forward Tori Powell scored the evening’s lone goal on a right-footed strike from the top of the box.

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In almost any other match, Powell would not have taken the shot.

“We don’t really like shooting from outside the penalty box,” longtime Santa Clara head coach Jerry Smith said. “We said to the team, ‘In Provo, you can shoot outside the penalty box. It’s a little thinner air and the ball will travel a little faster.’”

As quickly as the ball traveled into the BYU goal, the Cougars’ season was on thin ice.

“I didn’t feel too much pressure in front of me, so I kind of looked at where the goalkeeper was, decided to hit it high and was just happy it went in,” said Powell, who had been substituted into the match just over 10 minutes before scoring.

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In the 89th minute, it It looked as if the Cougars had snatched their season from its brink when sophomore defender Avery Frischknecht found the back of the net, but an offside call proved otherwise, leaving BYU little time to push the match past 90 minutes as the final buzzer sounded moments later.

The loss keeps the Cougars from earning their first win over their former West Coast Conference foe in their last three tries.

Entering the NCAA tournament, the Broncos thought they wanted nothing to do with the Cougars.

“We have so much respect for the BYU program, the coaching staff, … the team,” Smith said. “We did not want to see BYU when the selection show came out at all.”

The Cougars’ season concludes at 9-7-5, marking the first year the Provo school failed to reach 10 wins since 2017. Despite the season ending defeat, BYU couldn’t be more optimistic about the future.

“It’s the youngest BYU team that we’ve ever had,” Rockwood said. “For them to finish fourth in the Big 12, finish ranked in one of the polls and host an NCAA tournament game (I’m), really proud of our team and the players and how hard they’ve worked through a lot of adversity.”

Freshman midfielder Mika Krommenhoek expressed a similar sentiment to that of her coach.

“Obviously it was a unique year having so many young players,” she said, “but I think honestly it was a little bit of an advantage for us just because we were able to grow together and we had to progress together, overcome those challenges together. … We were able to…gain that chemistry, which I think will be really big for us going forward.”

Rockwood believes the challenges of this year will bring greater success in the future.

“We’ll be ready and better than ever next season,” she vowed.