COURTNEY SMITH/ Arizona Daily Wildcat The Wildcat's soccer team opened their season this year with a 2-0 victory against the University of Missouri.

Senior midfielder Nikki David of the Arizona women's soccer team entered the weekend's games against Princeton and Penn with one assist on the season.

She ended the weekend with one goal and three more assists and as a result earned co-Pacific 10 Conference Player of the Week honors, the first such honor in David's career.

"Yeah, right place at the right time," said David of her performance in New Jersey. "Someone was on the other end to put away my passes."

David scored the team's first goal in a 2-1 victory over Princeton on Thursday and had the game-winning assist on freshman forward London King's goal to snap the Tigers' 19-game home winning streak.

In Saturday's game against Penn, David assisted the first two goals of the game in a 4-0 rout.

David was named to the Pac-10 honorable mention team in 2004 and has already exceeded her numbers from last season (one goal, one assist). She is third in the Pac-10 in assists.

David shared her honors with California senior forward Liz Eisenberg, who scored two game-winning goals over the weekend.

Wildcats back in national Top 25

After falling into the "received votes" category of the national Top 25 last week, the Wildcats (3-1-1) jumped back up to No. 22 in the National Soccer Coaches Association of America poll this week.

The Wildcats moved up by winning the Princeton Invitational and defeating the host team, a 2004 Final Four participant.

"This last weekend, I think, was big for us," said senior midfielder-forward Kamaya Damwijk. "I think we had a lot of improvements in the two games."

"These two games just show that we have what it takes," she said. "We didn't even play our best, and we still came out with wins."

Early numbers on pace with record-breaking 2004 team

Thus far, the 2005 Wildcats have gotten on the right track, with numbers comparable to last year's record-breaking squad.

After five games this year, Arizona is undefeated except for a 3-1 loss to Pepperdine and a 0-0 tie with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

At the five-game mark last season, the Wildcats were 4-1, with their only loss coming from a ranked West Virginia team.

This season, the Wildcats have scored nine goals and allowed four. By this point last season, Arizona had scored 12 goals, bolstered by a 7-0 rout of Farleigh Dickinson, and had allowed just two.

Time together paying off for David, Miller

In the offseason, Arizona head coach Dan Tobias decided that senior Mallory Miller would spend the majority of her time at forward this season, after she spent the majority of her first three years at midfielder.

The move is paying off for Miller and for David. Miller leads the team in goals scored with four, and three of those have come off assists from David.

"This being our fourth year playing together, we've learned each other's tendencies," David said. "You pick those things up after playing together so long."