The No. 1 Stanford women’s soccer team travels to Arizona this weekend to take on Arizona and Arizona State, heading off on what could be the team’s final trip out of California until the College Cup.
After this weekend, the Card will only have three Pac-10 matches left–a trip across the Bay to Berkeley and games against the Oregon schools at home. Given its current ranking, Stanford will likely be playing at home for the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament (if the team advances to all of those rounds) before the Final Four takes place in Cary, N.C.
But first the Cardinal must survive the trip to the desert, which begins Friday night in Tempe against Arizona State. ASU comes into the match with a record of 8-3-2 (2-1-0 Pac-10), but has not been on a great run of late. After starting the season at an impressive 6-0-1, the team has gone 2-3-1 since.
The Sun Devils do have a bit of momentum now, however, and thanks to a good conference start they are still in third place in the Pac-10. ASU split its games in Washington two weeks ago, beating Washington State,1-0, but losing to Washington by the same score. Last weekend the Sun Devils hosted in-state rival Arizona and came away with a 2-1 victory. An upset over Stanford would prove them to be legitimate contenders in the conference.
Arizona, meanwhile, is looking to gain respect after a rough start to the season. The Wildcats are 4-8-2 and sit at the bottom of the Pac-10 standings, with a 0-3-0 conference record. Aside from last weekend’s loss to Arizona State, they also lost a close 1-0 match to Washington State, but were trounced by Washington 4-1. They will play their first conference game at home on Friday against Cal before hosting Stanford on Sunday at noon.
Although these are not the most high-profile matches on Stanford’s schedule, the Card is still prepared for a challenge in the desert.
“Both [Arizona and Arizona State] are tough teams,” said Stanford head coach Paul Ratcliffe. “We’ll have to really show up and give good effort to get the wins.”
The Cardinal did just that last year, winning relatively comfortably against both of the Arizona schools when they visited the Farm–Stanford beat Arizona State 3-1 behind goals from Mariah Nogueira, Courtney Verloo and Morgan Redman, and then clinched a share of the Pac-10 title by beating Arizona 4-0. Kelley O’Hara tied the school record for points in a single season during that game, and the Card also got goals from Nogueira, Christen Press and Teresa Noyola.
While O’Hara has since graduated, every other player who scored for Stanford that weekend is still on the team. In fact, Press has been breaking records of her own, as she has claimed the Stanford career points and goals marks this year. The forward is in incredible form, and going into this weekend has 18 goals on the season and has scored in nine consecutive matches.
Not that the streak crosses her mind during the game, though.
“I don’t think about it…when I’m playing,” Press said. “I just have been in front of the goal so many times this year [and] I’ve had so many good chances, it’s just about finding a way to persevere and get one in. I think, ‘I’ve got to get one [of the chances], at least, in,’ not ‘I’ve got to score this game [for the streak].’”
“That’s her job,” Ratcliffe added.
He also noted that whoever is scoring is secondary to how the team is playing overall.
“The team is supplying great passes to her to get the goals [and] to be a forward you have to be a goal-scorer,” he said.
As for the road trip, Press is excited, but the senior refuses to believe that it will be the last time in her college career that she will hit the road with her teammates.
“It’s going to be fun…but we don’t like to think that it will be our last road trip,” she said. “We’ve got a bigger and better road trip ahead of us at the end of the year.”
Stanford will take on Arizona State on Friday at 7 p.m. in Tempe, Ariz., before facing the Wildcats at 12 p.m. on Sunday in Tucson, Ariz.