Cougars finish 2008 season with tie vs. Abbotsford

The BYU men's soccer team can certainly feel a kinship to a struggling deep-sea fishing operation.

Both groups know from experience that if you don't fill the nets, you don't have success.

The Cougars peppered the goal of visiting Abbotsford in their season finale Saturday night at South Field in Provo, but as has happened so often this summer, they couldn't score enough.

The result was a 1-1 tie that BYU head coach Chris Watkins said probably accurately represents the level of the team this year.

"We threw a lot of guys forward," he explained. "I was proud of their effort tonight. They worked their guts out.

"But I think we've been averaging about 1.5 goals per game this season and giving up 0.9 goals this season, so we're about on par. Unfortunately that's how good we are. We have to play good defense to win."

The Mariners didn't take long to get on the board as forward Spencer Schmidt -- the team's leading scorer -- placed a great bending shot off a free kick just inside the left post in the ninth minute of play to give the visitors the lead.

"He took a brilliant set piece," Watkins said. "That was a world-class set piece and for us to score two goals is tough. We aren't built that way."

From that point throughout much of the rest of the game, it would be BYU that would put the pressure on. They fired 15 shots, including seven on target, but all but six of those missed the mark.

The lone exception for the home team was the equalizer scored by forward Steve Fellows in the 64th minute.

It wasn't an easy shot by any means, as Fellows weaved through a couple of defenders, lost the ball briefly, then regained it to smash it past the diving Abbotsford keeper into the net.

The Cougars appeared to have a couple of great chances to go in front, the most spectacular being a shot in the penalty box in the final minutes that Mariner keeper Tyler Bladdock managed to deflect with his head.

"I think the goalkeeper grew a third arm or something there on that last save," Watkins said. "I don't know where that came from. It was a pretty incredible save."

BYU (7-6-3) hoped for a better result in the final game of the year but realizes that some years things just don't go the way they want them to.

"Some seasons you don't have injuries and the ball goes in, and sometimes you do have injuries and it doesn't go in," the Cougar head coach said. "The latter was the clearly the season we had."

For the seniors, Saturday's game was a chance to enjoy taking the field in a BYU uniform one final time.

"It's BYU soccer," said Cougar senior defender Clay Christenson. "We've had our ups and downs, but we played great and I'm proud of the way we carried ourselves on the field. It was fun. We dominated the game, but the story of our season has been that we couldn't put the ball in the back of the net enough."

But with a host of young players and some time to heal, Watkins sees a bright future for his squad.

"Getting guys healthy will be a big part of it but we've got a lot of young talent," he said. "They got some minutes and we know they can do a lot of good things. I'm very comfortable in saying that next summer we'll be a lot better team."

• Jared Lloyd can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it