Before their match on Sunday, Portland State senior defender Juli Edwards said she and her former teammate Tiffany Smith exchanged smiles and hellos.
Oregon coach Tara Erickson joked that she waited until after Oregon won, 2-1, to do that.
“You want to see them have success, except for us,” said Erickson, who coached at Portland State from 2001-04. “I don’t say ‘Hi’ to them until after the game. We were focused on us.”
Smith, now a senior forward for the Ducks, spent her first and only season as a Viking in 2004. She played with Edwards that year, clocking in 16 matches as a freshman before following Erickson – who’d spent four years transforming one of the Big Sky’s worst teams into a perennial conference contender – to Eugene.
Edwards, Portland State’s only senior, knows Smith – she was competitive, a great person, a hard worker, she said – but distance and time diminished the connection the two built during their lone year together.
“She left before I really got to know her, but we were friends on the team,” Edwards said. “It was really good to see her.”
For Smith, who powered Oregon (6-3 overall) past Portland State (4-6 overall) with a goal and an assist, the reunion was even more enjoyable, though the Eugene native said there wasn’t much significance attached to the win aside from its worth in the standings.
Game Highlights |
“I know some of their names, but not personally,” Smith said. “It is not the same team, but they are all great people.
“Every game is important, so it was just as important as every other game.”
The Ducks, drenched from a downpour that seemed to only worsen as the match progressed, scored first in the 8th minute when sophomore midfielder Teresa Bowns kicked a goal into the left side of the net.
Portland State goalkeeper Cris Lewis, who made one save in 45 minutes, was caught out of position when Bowns received a pass up the middle from Smith and ripped the shot past Lewis from eight yards out.
Bowns, whose speedy play drew a few offside calls in the match, avoided the violation when she gave her team the lead. Oregon was charged with three offside offenses in less than a minute during the 20th minute.
Later in the contest, Smith collided violently with Lewis during the 10th minute after Barbara Blocker forwarded a through ball to her.
“I was planning on flipping it by her, and I didn’t know she was there,” said Smith, who lay on the field for more than a minute before slowly pulling herself up. “I honestly didn’t see her, and she turned and hit me. … My body hurts. I have a dead leg, my jaw hurts, my lip was bleeding.”
But Smith recovered. She stayed in the game and headed in the eventual game-winner during the 37th minute.
“Luckily my head doesn’t hurt that bad,” a grinning Smith said.
Junior Jessica Goodell crossed a pass she received from junior Allison Newton to Smith, who streaked past the line of defense. From five yards out, Smith burst into the air and guided the ball into an exposed left corner with her head.
“(Goodell) served such a great ball that all Tiff had to do was get on the end of it,” Erickson said.
And the setup wasn’t a fortuitous one – the squad practiced headers all week, and Smith was eager to redeem herself after missing several last weekend.
Oregon cleared the ball and defended the attack well in the second half, but allowed Viking sophomore forward Tarah Authier to sneak into the box and tip in a shot during the 79th minute. The ball trickled over the goal line and past junior goalkeeper Jessie Chatfield, who made three saves in 90 minutes.
“After they scored, it was kind of like ‘Oh my God, they only need one more goal to be in it,’” Smith said. “It gave us motivation.”
Despite allowing the goal, Chatfield still ended her day on a high note: She tied Amanda Fox’s program career record for career wins with 23.
Oregon next hosts No. 2 Portland at 7 p.m. Friday at Papé Field.