College soccer notes: WSU women seek tournament opener at home
Washington State soccer coach Todd Shulenberger hopes his team can harness its “road warrior” mentality at least one more time.
Fresh off two wins in the Willamette Valley that probably secured an NCAA tournament berth, the Cougars are at Washington on Thursday night for the Pac-12 finale. Win that one and WSU could host a first-round game for the third straight year.
“Those committees – you never know … but I think we’ve done enough,” said Shulenberger, who went on to tick off the Cougars’ achievements in his first year: a 13-5 overall record and a 6-4 Pac-12 mark that has them tied with Cal for fourth place and one-half game behind third-place Arizona.
WSU is 8-1 on the road and 5-0 in conference road games. Washington (11-5-2, 4-4-1) probably needs a win to reach the postseason.
Another NCAA berth would be the fourth straight for the Cougars and the sixth and seven years, but Shulenberger is focused on the task at hand.
“It’s all about Washington right now,” said Shulenberger, whose team set the stage with a gritty comeback on Sunday at Oregon State.
Trailing 1-0 at halftime, the Cougars shrugged off the rain and the Beavers to rally for a 2-1 win.
“That was huge,” said Shulenberger, who said he had to remind his players “in a not very gentle way” at halftime to get more aggressive in tackling and winning loose balls.
In the latter half of the season, that’s translated into more success on the defensive end, where the Cougars have given up just five goals in their last seven matches. Freshman goalkeeper Ella Dederick, whom Shulenberger calls the best in the Pac-12, has been in goal for all 13 matches.
One concern is set pieces. WSU has given up goals on three corner kicks, two of them in one-goal losses to Stanford and Arizona.
“Whatever we are numbers-wise, we can’t give those up,” Shulenberger said.
NCAA pairings will be announced next week. The tournament opens on Nov. 13.
Idaho and Eastern Washington: No team in the region is on a bigger roll than the Vandals, who went undefeated in the Big Sky Conference regular season.
That earned the Vandals (13-4-2, 9-0-1 Big Sky) the host spot in this week’s conference tournament, which opens Thursday at Guy Wicks Field in Moscow.
“We’ve been very strong at home and our players do a great job of preparing themselves week to week. We’ll do everything we can to protect our home field in the tournament,” UI coach Derek Pittman said.
Idaho also recorded the most goals, assists, points and shutouts in team history, and is one win away from tying the program-best mark of 14 set in 2010. Idaho finished conference play with the highest-scoring offense and the stingiest defense in the league.
The Vandals open up the tournament on Friday at 1 p.m. against the winner of the Weber State-Montana matchup Thursday.
In the other bracket, third-seeded Eastern Washington (12-3-3, 6-2-2) faces Sacramento State on Thursday at 11 a.m. The winner faces No. 2 seed Northern Colorado.
“We’re in a good spot,” said second-year EWU coach Chad Bodnar, whose club beat Idaho 2-1 in the preseason and earned a 1-1 tie at UI last weekend.
“I think we’ve shown through the course of the season that we can beat anybody,” Bodnar said.
Whitworth men: With a 15-1-1 overall record and an 11-1-1 mark in the Northwest Conference, the ninth-ranked Pirates should be a lock for the NCAA Division III tournament going into their regular-season finale on Saturday at Whitman.
The NWC title is another matter. Whitworth is just one game ahead of Pacific Lutheran. A draw or loss will leave a window of opportunity open for PLU to possibly tie or overtake the Pirates in the standings, depending on the result of the Lutes’ final match of the regular season against Puget Sound.
The Pirates scored nine goals last weekend in beating Linfield 3-1 and Willamette 6-1. Forward Karl Muelheims had four of them, increasing his NWS-leading total to 19. That ties the school single-season record set by John Gould in in 1988.