PROVO — Though the BYU soccer team came out and took care of business against Southern Utah Wednesday night, they didn't dominate the T-Birds from start to finish like most assumed they would.

The T-Birds managed to score their first goals ever against the Cougars, but BYU walked away with a 3-2 victory after scoring the winning goal with just over 21 minutes left.

The Cougars came out strong, scoring two goals in the first half for the first time of the season, and both came in the first 15 minutes on a goals by Carlee Payne and Andrea Willis.

Payne's was the freshman's eighth of the season. She has more goals and points than the rest of the team combined.

Jessica Ringwood assisted Payne on her opening goal a mere 3:24 into the game.

The second goal came off a corner kick by Alyssa Vander Veur to Willis as the defender picked up her first goal of the season.

But the two-goal lead may have made the Cougars overconfident late in the first half and early in the second.

"We got off to a great start and had opportunities to separate ourselves, but in soccer anything can happen," said BYU coach Jennifer Rockwood. "They battled hard, maybe harder than we did sometimes. We need to learn to keep up the intensity for 20 minutes because in soccer one shot makes all the difference,"

"I think the intensity dropped a little bit after two goals," added Payne. "I feel like we should have had a lot more goals because we had a lot of opportunities,"

And the Cougars did have plenty of opportunities to score with 21 shots, 14 on goal, while only giving up four shots on goal to the T-Birds.

But the T-Birds took advantage of what they were given, especially late in the first half and early in the second, and it was a pair of freshmen that picked up the team's first-ever scores against the Cougars.

Freshman Rachel Krenzer picked up an unassisted goal from the corner of the box with one minute left in the first half.

"I felt like we had a turning point with about eight minutes left in the first half, and the girls figured out they could knock the ball around against this team," said SUU coach Brian Stock. "We had one break at the perfect time that led to us taking the momentum into the second half."

Michelle Judd added a second goal to tie the score in the second half.

However, the Cougars finally scored the game-winning goal off the foot of Kassidy Shumway on an assist from Payne.

e-mail: jolsen@desnews.com