Despite a new slate over the weekend and the opportunity to play at home, the ASU soccer team (6-7, 2-3 Pac-12) finished with a familiar result, splitting a pair of games.
In the five two-game weekends the Sun Devils played so far, their record was 1-1 in four of them.
Oregon State (10-3-1, 3-1) shut out ASU 2-0 on Friday in Tempe, but ASU turned it around to pummel Oregon (6-7-1, 1-4) 4-0 on Sunday.
Sun Devils rout Oregon
Sophomore forward Devin Marshall’s return to the starting line-up boosted a slumping ASU offense.
In the 12th minute, junior midfielder Aissa Sanchez recovered a loose ball that was on its way out-of-bounds near the goalie box, and fed Marshall inside. Marshall’s shot beat Oregon goalie Abbey Steele to the left.
That was just the beginning of an onslaught of goals for the Sun Devils. ASU scored three more times and took 18 shots – 13 of them on goal.
“The difference is we’ve starting to get some of these (injured) people on,” head coach Kevin Boyd said. “I mean we’ve been missing Devin tremendously and it shows.”
ASU also played their defenders further back against Oregon, and didn’t allow the Ducks to get behind them. Oregon took five shots and put just one of them on frame.
Nearing halftime, senior defender Kate Sangster collided with an Oregon player on a 50-50 ball. Freshman defender Madison Cody recovered the loose ball and passed it to junior forward Sierra Cook.
Cook, who now enters games as a reserve, then scored on a shot that went over Steele’s head.
ASU didn’t sit on their 2-0 halftime lead, but continued to bruise Oregon’s defense.
In the 68th minute, senior defender Kari Shane drilled a free kick off of the goal post. Marshall headed in the rebound to give her a second goal.
Just minutes later, Cook equaled Marshall’s two goals, scoring off of a pass from junior forward/defender Alyssa Freeman.
ASU cruised from there on and the 4-0 score held. The Sun Devils entered the game in a must-win situation because they were two games under .500.
“Losing was not an option today,” Marshall said. “We had no other option but to win. We worked on a lot of stuff in practice on Saturday, and worked on playing as a team and coming out and having that emotion and passion and I think we brought it out on the field today.”
Cook is pleased with how her team finally finished properly.
“We’ve been playing good teams and we’ve been playing well ourselves,” Cook said. “We haven’t finished like we should have, we just made the difference today.”
Team falls to No. 19 Oregon State
Behind a spirited home crowd seeing their team for the first time in three weeks, the Sun Devils controlled possession for most of the first half.
However, ASU couldn’t put their few shots on frame when they got the chance. Boyd said the Sun Devils should have had one or two goals in that first half.
On the other side of the field, Oregon State sophomore forward Jenna Richardson scored twice against ASU’s defense.
In the ninth minute, Oregon State senior forward Chelsea Butler passed the ball to Richardson on a breakaway near the penalty box.
Richardson beat two Sun Devil defenders to the ball and scored on a one-on-one situation against junior ASU goalie Alyssa Gillmore.
Oregon State iced the victory in the 74th minute when Richardson drew Gillmore outside the goal. Richardson scored easily on the empty net.
"We made three mistakes, they got three 1-on-1’s," Boyd said. "We talked about how they would try and come at us and where they wanted to go, and they did exactly what we talked about.”
Oregon State continued their physical play and fouled ASU 20 times on Friday, drawing three yellow cards.
ASU was without sophomore defender Jasmine Roth, who served her one-game suspension for a red card.
Reach the reporter at justin.janssen@asu.edu
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