The defending 6A state champions have looked every bit the part as the season has drawn on.
The Weber Warriors remained in their strong form Thursday afternoon, defeating Region 1 foe Northridge on the road by a score of 2-0. Thursday’s game was the fifth time in six games that the Warriors have kept a clean sheet.
The fifth shutout is especially impressive considering that Northridge is the highest scoring 6A team so far this season, with 21 total goals scored heading into the match against Weber. But Northridge had yet to see a defense as staunch as Weber’s.
“They’ve scored a lot of goals, and that was our focus. We wanted to make sure that we played our game and not their game,” Weber head coach Jan Swift said.
The play styles of the two teams had been vastly different in the games leading up to Thursday’s matchup. The Knights had three games with five or more goals scored, and Weber has only allowed one goal so far this entire season.
The one goal was conceded just two days prior in the Warriors game against Clearfield. Swift said his team may have taken out the frustration of allowing that goal on Northridge.
“It was a wake-up call when we got scored on against Clearfield,” Swift said. “We knew we needed to focus more defensively and make sure we pick up our marks, which we did (today).”
The first 20 minutes of the game were very much neck and neck, with possession equally divided between the two teams.
With 16 minutes remaining in the opening half, Weber broke through when forward Braden Bennett drew a penalty just inside the Northridge’s penalty box. Weber’s Collin Jones drove the penalty home in the left side of the net, inches out of the reach of the keeper’s outstretched arms.
Northridge supporters were in uproar and felt that the penalty shouldn’t have been given, saying that Bennett dove to ground. Swift disagreed and said that not only was the penalty the correct call, but that the officials missed an additional penalty call just moments before the actual one was awarded.
Regardless, the goal swung most of the momentum in the direction of the Warriors.
“It gave us confidence,” Swift said concerning the opening goal. “We started settling down and playing our brand of soccer, knocking the ball around and keeping possession. That’s what we do and that’s what we focus on.”
Just a minute after the penalty was scored, Weber’s Jake Youngberg scored the second Weber goal. Youngberg volleyed the shot off an attempted headed clearance from a Northridge defender.
Weber seemed to dominate possession after gaining the two-goal lead, but Northridge had a couple of chances to get themselves on the board. Off a corner, with 23 minutes left in the, Northridge sent a headed shot just wide of the far post, and with 19 minutes left, Connor Williams sent a left-footed shot from within the penalty box just over the crossbar.
Despite the couple chances Northridge had, the game was controlled by Weber from the opening goals until the final whistle.
Weber improved to 6-0 overall and 5-0 in region play and will face Syracuse — the only other undefeated team in Region 1 — on April 13 due to spring breaks in Weber and Davis county school districts that don’t match up with each other.
With arguably the biggest game of the season so far on deck, Swift says he is not happy about the length and timing of the break in play. “I hate it. That’s too much dead time. It’ll be like starting all over again,” he said.
Swift said that he plans to train his boys hard this last week before they go on their spring break and that he will try to host training sessions for any boys who remain in town over spring break.
Despite the challenges that the pause might present, Swift says he and his team feel great about the position they’ve put themselves in heading into the break, but that they’ll need to remain zeroed in if they want to maintain their current form.
“It feels really good (to be undefeated),” Swift said. “But, you know, we’ve got to focus, we can’t take any team for granted. We learned back in 2019 and last year that you’ve got to come focused for every game.”
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/3so6r1V
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