With the seventh-ranked UCLA women’s soccer team playing
unheralded Washington State on Friday and highly ranked Washington
on Sunday, it would be understandable if the team overlooks its
first match.
But according to coach Jill Ellis, the team’s focus will
be squarely on the Cougars on Friday.
“The way we look at this, Washington State is our biggest
match of the year,” Ellis said. “It’s a matter of
trying to take care of what we need to take care of on
Friday.”
The Bruins have learned not to take the Cougars for granted.
Last year at Drake Stadium, the Cougars took UCLA (9-3, 2-0 Pac-10)
to overtime before the Bruins prevailed 2-1.
“We’ve always had close games with them. I
don’t remember any games that were really lopsided,”
Ellis said. “They are a hard-working team, have decent
athletes, and are a team that can show up and be a real
handful.”
Although the team is currently focusing on the Cougars (5-5-2,
0-2), their marquee game will be against No. 8 Washington (9-2-1,
0-1-1).
The Huskies have had an extremely tough schedule thus far,
having played five top-25 schools and compiling a 4-1 record
against those teams, including wins against No. 3 Penn State and
No. 4 Portland. The Huskies will also be playing their first home
match in over a month and a half.
“They’ve been on a roll and had some great wins.
Their coach, Lesle (Garrison); I have so much respect for
her,” Ellis said. “They play well as a team. I
wouldn’t say that they have a lot of superstars, but they are
good front to back.”
UCLA’s schedule has been just as grueling with the Bruins
also playing five top-25 schools and going 4-1 against them.
However, just one of those victories came against a top-ten team.
An encouraging sign for the Bruins may be that they defeated the
one common top-25 opponent they and the Huskies have played,
University of San Diego, 4-0, while the Huskies lost to the Toreros
2-1.
One of Ellis’ concerns is that the fields the Bruins will
be playing on have much longer grass than Drake Stadium, which will
take away the Bruins’ advantage in speed.
“The surface is always a factor,” Ellis said.
“The grass is longer so our type of up-tempo play slows us
down and it’s a little more conducive to teams that maybe
don’t have as much pace as we have.”
Wet weather is always a possibility in rainy Washington as well
and is something the team will attempt to adjust to during
warm-ups.
“We’ll go out and see the field, play a little bit,
get a feel for how the field is,” said junior Crystal
James.