It’s a trip to Tucson without the rivalry matchup.
The ASU women’s soccer team travels to UA’s home field this weekend to compete in the Lowe’s Ventana Resorts Cats Classic. ASU is set to face Texas Tech (4-3) on Friday and Pacific on Sunday (4-3).
“These are both good teams this weekend,” ASU head coach Kevin Boyd said. “They’re going to be as good as the teams we just played, if you ask me.”
This weekend marks the end of non-conference play for the Sun Devils (3-3). The level of competition rises once ASU starts their conference schedule.
After dropping three of their last four games, the goal of the weekend is to pick up momentum heading into conference play.
“I think it’s really important,” sophomore midfielder Holland Crook said on gaining confidence this weekend. “We want to put our best game out there and see what we have as a team, so I think this weekend is really important.”
The issue the past two weeks, according to Boyd, is that when the team is facing adversity, they don’t play the way they’ve been practicing.
“We have to really impose our style of play and that’s what’s coming and going,” Boyd said. “When we’re challenged, our style of play disappears a little bit and that’s a problem.”
Boyd said they worked even more in practice this week to simulate game-action and playing their way in game situations.
Injuries to sophomore forward Devin Marshall and redshirt sophomore forward Nicki Stone have hurt ASU’s offense in recent weeks. The Sun Devils adjusted their lineup by putting freshman midfielder Jessica DeLeon in the starting lineup and by shifting Crook from the midfield to play with the frontline.
“I was definitely really nervous the first time (starting), but after that it was pretty much normal,” DeLeon said.
Crook said that she played forward for years at the club level, but at the NCAA level the position switch was a big adjustment. “At this level, yeah it’s a big switch,” she said. (On the other hand,) it’s not like I’ve never seen time with it.”
DeLeon said the team is deep enough to win games while the two continue to recover from their injuries.
“We have a pretty deep bench, so we have people that can fill in, DeLeon said. “But it definitely hurts us that we don’t have (the) other (injured) people there.”
ASU won’t have either injured player back in time for their first game of the weekend on Friday. Their opponent, Texas Tech has never made the NCAA tournament and posts a 122-195-22 all-time record heading into 2011.
The Red Raiders have had some difficulties finding the net in the early going. They have scored eight goals in seven games and just seven percent of their shots. In comparison, 16 percent of ASU’s shots this year found the net.
Pacific was eliminated by UC Irvine in the Big West conference tournament last year — the same school ASU lost to in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu
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