ASU soccer defeated Weber State in Tempe, Arizona 1-0 matching their win total from last season before starting conference play this week.
The Arizona State Sun Devils women’s soccer team closed out its non-conference schedule with a 1-0 win against the Weber State University Wildcats, a school from Ogden, Utah.
The match was played on another hot day in Tempe, Arizona with the game time temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Coach Graham Winkworth believes that practicing in the scorching heat “is a huge advantage,” and will possibly result in “scoring more goal in the second half of matches.”
The first half started with the Wildcats kicking off wearing their black and purple striped kits while the Sun Devils were in white tops and red shorts.
Most of the early portion of the first half was both teams trying to feel each other out with possession of the ball being the main target of the sides.
This tactic played out for most of the half with only one shot on target in the half. That shot was the lone shot on goal by the Wildcats and was taken by substitute Trinity Kerr in the 40th minute.
That shot was also the only save made by Sun Devil goalkeeper Sydney Day.
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Unlike the first half, the second was full of shots both on target and off. The half started quickly with an extremely close shot by Sun Devil captain Jemma Purfield in the 46th minute which rattled off the crossbar.
The pressure picked up greatly by the Sun Devils after Purfield’s shot and continued five minutes later when leading scorer Nicole Douglas broke free for a one-on-one with Wildcat goalkeeper Nikki Pittman who made a seemingly routine save of the shot.
The pressure frustrated the Wildcat defense as two yellow cards were handed out in a 10 second span.
The first of the two cards was shown to Chansi Crompton for talking back to the referee and the second was given to Megan Price for pulling the shirt of a Sun Devil attacker.
The Sun Devils attack was finally able to break through in the 62nd minute. The goal was created by a bit of skill by Purfield.
She took the ball on the leftwing turned on a dime then “saw have her legs open I thought flick it through her legs and run around her,” before finally playing the ball into the box to the perfect spot for Douglas to flick it past the keeper at the near post.
The final half hour after Douglas’s fifth goal of the season scraped the back of the net was played at a much slower pace than the first part of the second half.
The remaining time was taken up with 17 substitutions made by the two sides. There were also a few fouls in the final minutes and two shots not on target one for each team.
Overall it was a well-deserved win by the Sun Devils in their final non-conference match of the season before starting play in a very tough Pac-12.
Winkworth is excited to start conference play and is impressed with the “amazing camaraderie” the team shows.
He is also hopeful that “the type of chemistry goes a long way when it comes to the tougher games of the season.”
Pac-12 play gets underway on Saturday September 22, as the Sun Devils go on the road to play against the California Golden Bears.
All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.