The Oregon women’s soccer team will look to start the conference schedule on the right foot as they face off with the Bay Area schools this weekend in northern California. The Ducks will visit No. 6 Stanford (10-0-1) Friday night in Palo Alto and No. 15 California (7-3-0) in Berkeley on Sunday afternoon.
For the Ducks, who are win-less against ranked teams so far this season, these games will mark the fourth and fifth time playing a ranked team. However, with wins throughout the rest of their schedule so far, the Ducks are confident they can compete with the elite teams in the Pac-10.
No. 3 Stanford leads the conference in the latest NCAA Women’s Soccer Relative Power Index rankings, and the Cardinal has lopsided victories over then-No. 15 Boston College and No. 22 Georgia. Their lone tie was against No. 5 North Carolina. Probably the scariest thing about Stanford’s impressive season thus far is that they have only allowed three goals all year; no team has scored twice against the Cardinal. Stanford fields a relatively young team, too. Fourteen of its 34 goals have been scored by freshmen. The Ducks have never beaten Stanford before, but they came close last year, as they played to a scoreless draw in Eugene.
California also started the year strongly. The Bears have shut out five of their ten opponents this year and are coming off wins over Santa Clara and BYU. The Bears lost at then-No. 7 Texas and then-No. 8 Texas A&M, but are much stronger (4-1) at home this year. The Ducks are 1-9-1 all-time against Cal and have not beaten them since 2003. The Bears are outscoring their opponents 21-8 and they have already eclipsed the 200 shots mark this year. Cal has been solid defensively, and has even used three different keepers this year.
The Ducks will be no stranger to the underdog role in Pac-10 play, but they have proven they can hang with some of the best teams in the country. The quest for an NCAA Tournament berth and the Pac-10 crown starts Friday night.
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