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Arizona Wildcats | ||
 | vs. |  |
Washington State Cougars | ||
Friday, 7 p.m.
Wildcats break UA single season win record with 1-0 victory
The Arizona soccer team (9-2-0) became the winningest team in the program's history with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Colorado College (6-4-1) at Murphey Stadium yesterday.
Although they outshot the Tigers 17-3 and dominated possession for most of the game, the only goal came in the 72nd minute. Jennifer Klein hit a shot from about 12 yards out that slipped past diving Tiger goalkeeper Meghann Loseke and into the corner of the net.
"Great pass, great set-up, good shot," said Klein. "With any first goal, it allows you to settle down a little bit and allows you to just play."
Next at home
Friday, 7 p.m. | |||||||||
The Wildcats created chance after chance in both the first and second half, but in a game with a combined 25 fouls - Colorado College's 13 and the UA's 12 - it was hard to settle into an offensive rhythm.
The goal was started by a seemingly errant pass by freshman midfielder Amanda Urtuzuastegui that looked to be too long. Freshman midfielder Nicole Scheid tracked it down and passed it into the middle, where it eventually popped out to Klein for the score.
With less than seven minutes remaining, freshman defender Kaity Heath received the only yellow card of the game after she and Tiger forward Ashley Hooverson got tangled up. Heath, who normally plays the full 90 minutes, came out of the game earlier in the second half when she injured her ankle after a tackle for the ball with a Colorado College player.
"On the positive side, we didn't feel like we gave up any high-quality chances. On the down side, we could have stuck some chances a lot earlier and made the game easier for ourselves," said UA head coach Dan Tobias.
On Friday night, the Wildcats fell to No. 25 Pepperdine 1-0 for their second loss of the season. The only goal of the game came off a shot 18 yards out by forward Jenna Fodor, just under seven minutes into the second half. Midfielder Jenna Ainsworth got the assist.
In some of the Wildcats' games over the last couple of weeks, Tobias liked his team's second-half play over their first-half efforts. In this game, they came out strong in the first half and outshot the Waves 7-5.
"It was really a good battle (in the) first half," said senior defender Lindsey Peeples. "Unfortunately, when you do fall asleep in the back for a second, even a second, in our game, unfortunate things happen. We were able to bounce back and we were attacking in the second half, we just couldn't get our chances put away."
In the second half, Senior Candice Wilks came up short on two different breakaway chances. The Wildcats took just three shots in the second half, compared to Pepperdine's eight.
It was much of the same in the first half. Just over three minutes into the game, Scheid crossed a ball to midfielder Mallory Miller, who was waiting inside the box. She mis-hit the ball and it sailed wide of the goal.
A minute later, Scheid and Klein took a couple of shots in the box, but they were deflected off a Pepperdine player before they could reach the goalkeeper.
In another opportunity just two minutes later, Miller slipped behind the Pepperdine defense and collected a pass from midfielder Nikki David. With one hand, Pepperdine goalkeeper Anna Picarelli tipped just enough of the ball to avoid a goal.
"That's what I try to tell the team - a game of chances," Tobias said. "They had theirs, they scored it, we had ours, we didn't stick one. Boy, what a different game the second half would have been if we just stick one of those four chances (we had) in the first half."
Miller left the game with just under 12 minutes left in the second half, when her neck got stepped on after sliding toward the goal for a shot. She returned early in the second half and played in yesterday's game as well.
The Wildcats' previous record for most victories in a season was 8, during the 1997 season.
The Wildcats look to build on their program record of wins this weekend when Washington and Washington State come to Tucson to open Pacific 10 Conference play.