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PROVO — When the BYU men’s soccer team went into halftime down 2-0 to visiting Colorado Rapids U-23, but with a man advantage, head coach Brandon Gilliam immediately began strategizing how he could get his team back into the fight.
For team captain Josh Hunter, all of the stratagem, trickery and formation switches failed when compared to one thing: heart, or specifically, who had more.
“Fire. That’s just that way we described it,” Hunter said after scoring two goals to rally his team to a 3-3 draw. “There wasn’t anything in particular; we just needed a little bit of fire under us to perform better. We are just as good as that team, and we shouldn’t have gone down 2-0 in the first half.”
Hunter showed the Cougars had plenty of it Friday night at South Field, scoring the equalizer in the final minute of stoppage time to help BYU rally in the Premier Development League Game of the Week at South Field.
“You can make tactical adjustments, but what it comes down to is how bad you want it,” BYU coach Brandon Gilliam said. “Josh said that in the locker room; he knew we had to make these adjustments, but he said we had to go at them — every single second we can.”
Things didn’t start out well for BYU before the Cougars earned their second-straight result in Provo.
Nathan Braaten gave the Rapids the advantage just three minutes into the game, banging home a wide-open header inside the far post in the third minute of play.
Jaret Townsend doubled the advantage for Colorado (3-4-3) just 30 minutes later on the counterattack. But the Rapids were forced to play with 10 men for most of the match after Bryce Montes was sent off with a red card in the 37th minute.
From there, the Cougars went to work.
“Sometimes you have to get punched in the face to start swinging back,” said Hunter, who scored his first two goals of the season. “Sometimes that’s what it takes for us. But we need to start swinging first — we can’t afford to go down every game.”
Cameron McLaughlin pulled one back just two minutes after the break, slaloming through the penalty area to slot home the opening goal for the host Cougars. Hunter responded with a goal of his own in the 65th minute, and his banger slipped from the goalkeeper’s grasp to equalize before the final half hour.
Were it not for McLaughlin’s cheeky blitz to pull one back, though, the Cougars may have missed a chance for back-to-back results following their first loss of the season three weeks ago.
“It set everything up for us,” Hunter said. “He went all out for 70 minutes, and he set that goal up. His intensity was contagious, and I think our guys saw that and made a difference.”
But the Rapids refused to die.
Andre Shinyashiki put 10-man Colorado ahead in the 84th minute, and the semi-professional arm of the Major League Soccer outfit was prepared to steal three points on the road in a critical match in the Mountain Division standings.
But Hunter pushed forward after Junior Lartey kept a ball alive during a chaotic stoppage-time frenzy in the Rapids’ penalty area, and the Akron, Ohio, product slotted home the equalizer as Colorado played with nine men following an injury in stoppage.
The Cougars and Rapids will play again Saturday at South Field, with fireworks to follow the match. Colorado, which suited up just 23 players Friday night, will be down to a four-man bench while looking for its first win over BYU of the year.
“Both teams have to take the night, cool their heads, and make sure that this game doesn’t carry over,” Gilliam said. “Let’s hope for a nice good game, on both sides, and no red cards. Let’s just hope not. That way we can both battle it out and get to work.”
