In the midst of a five-game road trip, the UCLA women’s soccer team made a pit stop in Westwood to attend the first week of classes.
The Bruins weren’t here long though, as No. 3 UCLA (9-0-2, 2-0-1) again takes to the road with a game against Oregon tonight and Oregon State on Sunday afternoon.
Oregon (5-5-2, 0-2-1 Pac-12) might not seem like a tough opponent at first glance, but the Ducks are 4-1-1 at home this season.
The Beavers (9-3-0, 1-2-0) were ranked No. 12 before losing two games last weekend.
Nevertheless, the Bruins are not concerned about what their opponents are doing and are focused only on their own game.
“We focus on the things we have to do and as long as we can take care of that … whatever needs to happen is going to happen,” assistant coach Manny Martins said.
The team maintains that every game is important regardless of who its opponent is.
“It’s mostly about taking one game at a time and respecting every opponent that you step on the field with and treating everyone the same way,” senior midfielder Chelsea Cline said.
“So, every game is just as important as the last one.”
After its win in Arizona last weekend, coach B.J. Snow was not pleased with his team’s turnovers and inability to put away games, so that’s what they have been working on while back on campus.
“We have been working on our quality of play … and just being strong for a longer duration of the game instead of just being strong at certain points of the game,” sophomore defender Ally Courtnall said.
Cline noted that the team need not overcomplicate things on themselves but rather keep things simple.
UCLA received good news this week at practice when the team found out sophomore forward Kylie McCarthy is healthy after taking a knee to the abdomen in its last match against Arizona State.
“Kylie seems to be fine. She went through practice today … so we believe that’s behind us now,” Martin said.
The players will have more time to get to know each other better and continue the bonding that started on their road trip to Arizona, which they said is only going to help them down the road.
“We were together for a long period of time on the road, so we had to spend a lot of time together. We had a lot of team bonding and I think that encouraged our team chemistry and made it a lot better,” Courtnall said.
“I think that showed on the field and I think that is going to help for our later games.”