(Photo: Jacob Franklin/WCSN)
No. 8 Arizona State faces off against no. 20 San Diego State on Saturday in a very important late-season matchup for both squads. While the Sun Devils look to keep their spot as a top 10 seed in MCLA D1, the Aztecs look to climb up the board as playoff time gets closer.
ASU comes into this game on an absolute tear as they are the winners of their last four games and hope to continue that streak on their string of road games. San Diego State has cooled down recently after their 5-2 start, as they have lost two out of their last three games.
ASU assistant coach Justin Straker said the team is confident with the way they’re playing but acknowledges the importance of beating SDSU.
“It’s nice to finally get the ball rolling on the offensive end. I know we struggled early but we’ve found more consistency, our senior attacker Rhett Rodgers definitely picked it up,” said Straker. “But it’s all about the next one, so we’ve won four straight, we’re doing a lot of good things, we had two weeks off so it’s a lot of time to get better, get healthy, and it’s all about San Diego State right now.”
Onto San Diego State, they are a very formidable opponent for the Devils. The best way to compare these teams is to look at their games against Brigham Young. Both teams lost in a very similar way, both allowing nine goals and SDSU scoring just one more goal than ASU did. Both teams are solid, and head coach Todd MacRobbie realizes the Atzecs’ strengths.
“They have Adrian Jeffries, who is a really good attackman.” MacRobbie said. “He’s a shift little kid and can play both hands really well. I think they have a very potent offense, so our defense really has to step up their game.”
MacRobbie then shifted to ASU, emphasizing the fact that to win, they just need to play. “I think that if we play a complete 60 minutes, I think we can play with nothing out there. Some of it is all about us too.”
This game will be very important to tournament seeding for both teams, which sets the table for a very hard fought game in California.
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