Jill Aguilera’s goal propels Arizona soccer past San Jose State in bounceback performance

Photo by Ryan Kelapire

SAN JOSE — After a gut-punching loss to Santa Clara on Friday, Arizona soccer returned to the win column Sunday with a 1-0 win over San Jose State.

Jill Aguilera delivered the game-winner in the 30th minute by collecting a short pass off a corner and rifling it into the upper corner.

“The corner kick we work on, a short is one of our options and to be able to hit it far post, serve it to Sam (Falasco) or Kelcey (Cavarra) or whoever’s back there,” Aguilera said. “I saw the space in front of me and I was just able to take a touch inside and hit it.”

.@jill_aguilera with a rocket to give @ArizonaSoccer a 1-0 lead on San Jose State pic.twitter.com/Iu8RlQvuvf

— Ryan Kelapire (@RKelapire) September 15, 2019

Other than that, it was a quiet day offensively for the Wildcats, who had 10 shots and seven corner kicks, but looked out of sync. Crosses often failed to find feet in the box and balls were played out wide without anyone there to run onto them.

“I think we did a good job getting into those spaces, and I think this week we have a couple extra days of preparation coming up against TCU, and that’s something that we’re going to work on and get a lot better at,” said Aguilera, who had seven shots.

In fairness, San Jose State (2-3-2) is a stout defensive team, and did a nice job marking Arizona’s attackers. Aguilera’s goal was the first the Spartans have allowed at home this season.

“I mean we knew going into this game that San Jose State was a really tough team,” said outside back Morgan McGarry. “They’re physical and have some great players that were able to be dynamic, so we knew it wasn’t going to be a walk-in-the-park for us.

“It seemed like when we were playing well, we we’re able to combine in the attack, get the ball moving forward a little bit quicker, that we could have scored a little bit more. I mean, they dropped a lot of people back, had a lot of numbers behind the ball, so it was difficult to get a good opportunity.”

Arizona (5-1) held SJSU without any dangerous scoring chances until the 84th minute when a corner was headed on frame, but UA keeper Kendyll Humphreys was there to corral it. The Wildcats have shut out their opponents in five of six matches this year, the lone exception being the 4-0 defeat to Santa Clara.

“We have our identity, we have a good defensive structure, our attackers know what they want to do, what the coaches want them doing, so it’s really just fine tuning those little things,” McGarry said.

While not the prettiest win, coach Tony Amato thought Arizona did what it needed to do Sunday—prevent the Santa Clara loss from sending the Wildcats into a costly tailspin.

“It’s a hard game on the road and Friday-Sunday set up, so we knew it was always going to be difficult from the beginning, and we just had to find a way to get the goal and win the game and Jill scored a great goal,” he said. “And that’s something that we thought she’d step up with this weekend and find a way to score and she did. And we defended well in terms of keeping a clean sheet, so I don’t think we should walk away not feeling good about this.”

Arizona wraps up non-conference play Saturday against TCU. The Horned Frogs are 6-2 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season.

“Leading up and leaving for the Santa Clara game, we weren’t our sharpest, we weren’t connecting and stuff like that,” McGarry said. “TCU is a great team that we’re facing, so we need to make sure we’re training hard and ready to go.”

Postgame interviews

Here’s Tony Amato after @ArizonaSoccer’s 1-0 win over San Jose State. He was happy how his team responded from the “gut punch” that was the loss to Santa Clara. pic.twitter.com/4i6HLNGdHi

— Ryan Kelapire (@RKelapire) September 15, 2019

Here’s @jill_aguilera after @ArizonaSoccer’s win vs. San Jose State. She scored the game’s lone goal by netting a laser from distance. pic.twitter.com/oBWhP5ih9h

— Ryan Kelapire (@RKelapire) September 15, 2019

Here’s Bay Area native @morgansmcgarry after @ArizonaSoccer’s 1-0 win over San Jose State pic.twitter.com/Hk3hjVqa60

— Ryan Kelapire (@RKelapire) September 15, 2019

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