ASU Soccer: Nicole Douglas leads Sun Devils to victory vs. Washington

The ASU soccer team held on to defeat the Washington Huskies 2-1 with a pair of goals coming from the shoe of forward Nicole Douglas.

Three days after upsetting the 12th ranked team the Washington State Cougars the Arizona State Sun Devils were back in action this time taking on the Washington Huskies in Tempe, Arizona.

For the first 15 minutes, the play was entirely dominated by the Huskies. They almost managed to get an opening goal in the second minute when a corner kick was cleared off of the goal line.

The Huskies seemed to take all of the energy out of the Sun Devils by possessing the majority of the ball in these opening minutes.

“We started the game very slowly,” head coach Graham Winkworth said.

The momentum of the game suddenly swung in the Sun Devils’ favor in the 20th minute when Marleen Schimmer played a beautiful through ball springing Nicole Douglas free on goal. Once through Douglas touched the ball to her right foot before sliding the ball past the oncoming Husky goalkeeper Siena Ruelas.

Douglas credited the goal to a good through ball from Schimmer.

“I think what helped me was my first touch,” Douglas said.

A little over a quarter of an hour later Douglas struck again upping her season tally to eight goals. This goal came off of a corner which Sun Devil captain and fellow Englishwoman Jemma Purfield crossed the ball perfectly into the box.

Douglas was standing at the back post and volleyed home the ball to give the Sun Devils a 2-0 lead which did not change through the remainder of the half.

The goal gave the Sun Devils all of the momentum going into the break.

“I wasn’t really expecting it to come at the back post, but I was ready and calmly put it in the back of the net,” Douglas said.

The Sun Devils looked unbeatable going into the second half, but after only two minutes the lead was cut in half on a goal by Husky substitute MaKayla Woods.

Woods’s goal came on a cross from Kennedy Smith who used a bit of skill to get through the Sun Devil defense before assisting Woods. This was a key moment in the match since it forced the Huskies to apply even more pressure on the Sun Devils.

After the Huskies goal they continued to completely outplay the Sun Devils and this was shown in the shot count which the Huskies led 5-3 after the goal including two in the final five minutes.

Despite all of the effort the Huskies could not find a way to tie up the score and this gave the Sun Devils a 2-1 victory putting them to 8-5-1 on the season.

The Sun Devils are now coming down the home stretch of the season and have an NCAA Tournament berth in their sights.

Arizona State will travel to play Oregon Thursday and Oregon State Sunday before returning home to play the Arizona Wildcats and a makeup game against the No. 1 team in the country, the Stanford Cardinal.

All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand by Devils in Detail unless otherwise noted.