Utah controlled the tempo for much of the first half, keeping the pressure on Minnesota goalkeeper Taylor Kane and the Aurora defense.
Jen Larrick didn’t try to hide the disappointment Saturday night, interrupting her postgame media availability to cast her gaze to the other side of TCO Stadium where the Utah United were celebrating their 1-0 victory over her Minnesota Aurora in the USL W League national semifinals.
“It’s hard to watch them dancing right now,” said the first-year Aurora head coach, whose team finished its season 12-1-2 overall.
“We work so hard to go undefeated and it stings when you lose and don’t get a chance again.”
Instead, it is Utah in its inaugural season who will go on to host defending league champion NC Courage U23 — which defeated Asheville City SC 2-1 in Saturday’s other semifinal — in the national title game on July 19.
A goal by Utah’s Ellie Walbruch in extra time at the end of the first half proved the difference, lifting her team to victory before a crowd of 5,607 gathered on a hazy Eagan night in which the poor air quality from Canadian wildfires necessitated regular hydration breaks.
Aurora defender Charley Boone and her teammates were trying to advance to the franchise’s first national championship game appearance since the team’s inaugural season in 2022.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Boone said. “You can almost taste (a berth in the national championship game). But hopefully this is just fuel for next season.”
Utah — which entered play leading the league in goals — controlled the tempo for much of the first half, keeping the pressure on Minnesota goalkeeper Taylor Kane and the Aurora defense.
“I think we started a little junkier than I anticipated,” Larrick said. “We’re used to this home crowd, so usually it rattles the other team a little more than it rattles us. But we were a little off during the first 10 minutes.”
Yet, Aurora forward Ava Westlund started to assert herself as play went on, firing off a shot from just to the left of United goalkeeper Taylor Rath, then breaking free in front of the Utah net before Rath stepped up to make another save.
“I thought those were our best chances of the night,” Larrick said. “On a different day, I think Westy puts at least one of those, if not two, away. But they’re people. They’re humans and she was giving us all she can.”
That meant it was Walbruch who scored first, beating Kane to the ball and driving it into the net to put the United up by a goal at halftime. It marked just the second goal the Aurora had surrendered at home all season.
“I’m not going to lie, it was hard to have that happen right before halftime,” Boone said. “But we tried to use that as fuel going into the (second) half.”
The goal meant the Aurora found themselves trailing, a position in which a team that had allowed just four goals all season entering Saturday’s game, hasn’t found itself in very often.
“It’s definitely a bit of a mental battle,” Boone said. “You go from being level with a team to being below them a little bit, so it’s always in the back of your mind that you have to score. The pressure is on.”
Yet Minnesota did not go quietly, continuing to create opportunities — including three shots that sailed high of the net in extra time. But Boone and company could not find a way to get the ball past Rath.
“We were building,” Boone said. “I think if you gave us another five minutes, we would have created a few more chances for ourselves. We just ran out of time.”
Source: Utah News