There will be plenty of emotion flowing out on Papé Field this weekend.
First off, the Oregon soccer team (4-11-1, 1-3-1 Pac-10) will face Washington State (10-5-0, 2-4-0) today in a game that has traditionally been a 90-minute battle.
Sunday, the Ducks will face the second-best team in the country — Washington (15-1-0, 6-0-0) — in its last home game of the year. It will mark the final time that the four seniors on the team will play in front of their fans.
The Ducks will try to create a little excitement in a season that has been simply mediocre up to this point.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us,” said Chalise Baysa, the team’s leading scorer. “And it’s about time we step up to the challenge.”
The emotion and intensity the Ducks should carry onto the field this weekend, expressed by Baysa and her teammates in practice this week, is something the team has been lacking recently.
“We’re trying to work on intense drills,” Oregon head coach Bill Steffen said after practice Tuesday. “We want to develop the habit of playing that way all the time, whenever we step on the field.”
Freshman forward Ann Westermark thinks the Ducks are ready for this weekend’s matches, as long as they can win the mental game.
“We play with intensity for 10 minutes, then go down again,” Westermark said. “I think we have to maintain that intensity for a whole game.”
“If we just come out with intensity, and play for the whole 90 minutes, we’ll be fine,” Baysa said.
The Ducks shouldn’t be hard-pressed to get up for either game this weekend. Washington comes into Sunday’s match ranked second in the country, for good reason. The Huskies lost one game, a 5-0 embarrassment to No. 1 Notre Dame in September. Since that game, Washington is 9-0, outscoring their opponents 22-5 over that stretch.
The Huskies have taken out their most important Pac-10 foes along the way, and could be on cruise control for the rest of the conference schedule. Washington beat No. 6 California, No. 8 UCLA, No. 15 Southern California and No. 18 Stanford by a combined 5-1 score. Now, the Huskies have only Oregon State, Oregon and Washington State left on their schedule.
“Both Washington schools are quality programs,” Steffen said.
Washington State, the Ducks’ opponent today, could win the Pac-10’s “dark horse” award. The Cougars have dropped close games to California, Stanford and USC — all by one goal — and beaten both Arizona schools. Washington State’s only Pac-10 blow-out came against UCLA, which beat the Cougars 4-0.
“These are quality teams, but that’s what we’ve prepared against,” Steffen said.
Sunday’s match will be the Ducks’ ninth against a current top-25 team. Oregon has taken on two top-10 teams, No. 5 North Carolina and No. 10 Portland. The Ducks have not beaten a top-25 team this year, but did upset then-No. 20 UCLA late last season.
The Ducks will play Washington State today, starting at 3 p.m. on Papé Field, while Sunday’s game with Washington will kick off at 1 p.m.