The Oregon women’s soccer team kicks off its Pacific-10 Conference schedule with two tough matches this weekend.
The Ducks (7-4 overall) play USC at 3 p.m. today in Los Angeles, Calif., at McAlister Field. They’ll head northwest of the Trojans’ campus for a noon match against UCLA on Sunday.
The Trojans, ranked No. 6 in the nation by SoccerBuzz, are 8-1-1 this season. They’re riding a six-game streak without a loss. The squad upset then-No. 2 Portland on Sept. 30.
The Women of Troy built their record behind goalkeeper Kristin Olsen, who owns Pac-10 highs in shutouts (5) and goals-against average (0.49). Olsen is also No. 2 in the conference with a .839 save percentage. Freshman Alyssa Davila has the second most game-winning goals in the Pac-10 with three; Megan Ohai, also a freshman, ranks No. 4 in goals with 5.
UCLA stands at No. 2 by SoccerBuzz, second only to Stanford. And the Bruins’ 7-1-2 record includes wins against strong opponents.
On Sunday, UCLA defeated No. 5 Santa Clara 4-1. The Bruins also beat Portland 2-1 in overtime on Sept. 28.
For Oregon, Allison Newton, a junior midfielder, leads the team in scoring with five goals. Sophomore midfielder Teresa Bowns and sophomore defender/midfielder Danielle Sweeney have both recorded four goals.
Junior midfielder Jen Cameron did not play against Gonzaga last Sunday after suffering a concussion during Oregon’s 4-0 loss to Portland two nights earlier.
Senior Dylann Tharp, a bastion in Oregon’s defense, re-aggravated her left ankle against the Pilots, but remained on the pitch. She played against the Bulldogs on Sunday and will start this weekend.
During Oregon’s 4-1 victory over Gonzaga, two Oregon records were set. Bowns earned the program’s single-game assists record by registering three. She also netted a goal in the lop-sided victory, which snapped the Bulldogs’ eight-match streak without a loss.
Also in the match, junior goalkeeper Jessie Chatfield eclipsed Amanda Fox’s career wins record by registering her 24th victory. Fox played for Oregon from 1996-99.
Volleyball heads to Los Angeles
The Oregon volleyball team is in the middle of its annual road trip to visit UCLA and USC. The Ducks played UCLA Thursday night, and now shift their attention to USC with a match tonight at 7 p.m.
The Ducks are working on maintaining leads after dropping matches to California and Stanford last week in which Oregon had chances.
Oregon held leads in the first two games against Cal, but lost both and even though they won game 3, the Ducks lost the match in four. The next night against Stanford, Oregon lost all three games even though they had opportunities to win games 1 and 2 and even game 3 outside of a couple lapses.”That’s such a cliché to say ‘is it just a mental thing?’” coach Jim Moore said. “The answer is yes, but that is 90 percent of what we do so it’s how do you deal with pressure, how do you work real hard when you’re supposed to win and focus on that.”
UCLA won its only match last week against crosstown rival USC in four games. The Bruins are 3-1 so far in Pac-10 play. The lone conference loss so far was a three game sweep to Stanford. UCLA, which only has two losses overall at 14-2, fell to 2006 NCAA Champion Nebraska in its other defeat.The Bruins attack is guided by Ali Daley, who leads the team with 3.96 kills a game followed by Kaitlin Sather at 3.49 and Rachell Johnson at 3.30. Daley also tops the team with 20 service aces. Johnson has 18. USC, which is 14-2 overall and 3-2 in conference, has the aforementioned loss to USC and were defeated by Stanford. Asia Kaczor is the top hitter for USC with 4.27 kills a game and 256 overall. Oregon earned a reprieve after its last two losses and remained at No. 19 in the CSTV/AVCA Coaches poll top 25.
“I think every time that we’ve had a tough loss or had something affect us that we’ve turned around and done a really great job learning from that,” middle blocker Sonja Newcombe said. “So I expect that we will go down and play our guts out – play as hard as we possibly can – ’cause I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
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