The UCLA women’s soccer team has not won a conference title since 2008.
UCLA has seen Stanford take the title four years in a row, but after the Bruins beat Stanford in early October, there was a shift in the Pac-12 standings and the Bruins took the conference lead and never looked back.
Junior defender Abby Dahlkemper said that winning the Pac-12 is important, but the team is taking it one game at a time and is first concentrating on its match against Oregon State today.
“(The Pac-12 title) is definitely huge,” Dahlkemper said. “It would be a really big turning point I think for the program since it’s been a couple of years since we (have) won, but I think our approach is just to take it one day at a time and one game at a time so our focus is all on Oregon State (today).”
Freshman midfielder Gabbi Miranda said that although she doesn’t know much about the Oregon teams, she knows that UCLA needs to approach both games seriously. She also said that winning the Pac-12 will give the Bruins an edge going into the postseason with home field advantage in the early rounds.
“It would be huge (to win the Pac-12 because it would) give us a good edge into the tournament,” Miranda said. “I think that if we could win the Pac-12 and get the No. 1 seed and be home all the way till the final four, that could be a huge advantage for us.”
With two wins this weekend UCLA will win the conference, while a win and a tie will ensure a share of the title, even if UCLA drops its last home game to USC and second-place Stanford wins all its matches. This should be a doable task for UCLA since Oregon State stands at eighth place and Oregon 11th in the Pac-12 standings.
For junior midfielder Caprice Dydasco, the key to a victory will be executing what UCLA has been practicing because other teams know the Bruins are the conference leader.
“I think that the biggest game is always going to be against us since we’re the top of the Pac-12,” Dydasco said. “(Oregon State and Oregon) are going to come out hard and we just have to be prepared and take what we learn from practice; finishing is a key. We have a lot of opportunities, but I think that finishing early would be the key (to get two victories).”