Utah Utes soccer: Utah product knocks out Utes

PROVO — It was bad enough for Utah losing to San Diego State 2-1 in double-overtime in Thursday's semifinals of the Mountain West Conference soccer tournament. It was doubly bad that the star for the Aztecs was a freshman from the Beehive State who got away.

The Aztecs, who will play BYU Saturday at noon in the MWC finals, ended Utah's season at BYU's South Field, thanks in large part to the play of freshman Niki Fernandes, who assisted on both of the Aztecs' goals.

Fernandes is the daughter of Fred and Shara, who played football and soccer, respectively, in college. She starred for Woods Cross High but decided to head to San Diego, even though Utah would have loved to have her. She ended up being the team's second leading scorer in her first year and earning first-team all-conference honors.

With Utah leading 1-0 and less than eight minutes left in the game, Fernandes beat a Ute defender on the right side and passed to Cat Walker, the MWC offensive player of the year, who fired a shot inside the far post.

Then with a little more than two minutes left in the second overtime, Fernandes made a perfect cross from the left side that freshman Sarah Halverson knocked home from a couple of yards out.

"It feels so good," Fernandes said. "I've been waiting all season for this and I was lucky enough to have friends and family watch me. It was really exciting to come back. Plus, breathing this Utah air is just amazing."

Utah coach Rich Manning said it felt like a "dagger" to have Fernandes play so well against his team.

"She's fantastic — she stretches the defense," he said. "She just terrorizes everyone defensively."

Third-year SDSU coach Mike Friesen, who has four Utah players on his roster, said he likes to come here to "steal a few players" because of the great talent in the state.

"She's an exciting player," said Friesen. "She's come on in the second half of the season and produced a lot of great goals and assists. She's just so dangerous."

Friesen felt his team had a tough time getting started after sitting out with a first-round bye, while Utah was defeating TCU 3-1 Wednesday in the first round.

Utah got on the board early in the second half when Erin Dalley beat a couple of defenders before curving one in with her left foot as she hit the turf.

Manning felt his team went flat soon after that and "started losing our steam."

The Utes nearly won it in the second minute of overtime when Kelly Isleib's hard shot sailed just over the crossbar. The Utes also had a goal by Lauren Hair negated by offsides with a minute left in the first OT. The winning goal was set up by a long pass from Hayley Marsh that Fernandes corralled near the left sideline and sent a pass to Halverson, who had no trouble slipping it past Ute goalkeeper Hannah Turpen.

"Niki gave me an amazing ball and it was pretty easy to put it in," Halverson said. The Utes finished 10-10-2, but Manning has high hopes for the future, losing just Isleib and two non-starters.

"I'm proud of our team, we persevered all season," he said. "We'll miss our seniors, but we have a lot of good soccer players coming back."

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