(Photo By: Hazel Foubert/WCSN)
Following its first loss of the season to the BYU Cougars (3-3-2, 1-0), the Arizona State Soccer team (5-1-2, 0-1) has a new sense of urgency in its practices leading up to its road trip to Houston and Central Florida.
“No one felt like they played their best,” senior defender Olivia Coleman said “Everyone’s taking that and we are going to apply it to our next game. Everyone’s going to put in 110%.”
Head coach Graham Winkworth knows what ASU needs to work on to take down some of the tougher competition they will face in the Big 12.
“I don’t think we matched [BYU],” Winkworth said. “We were physically tough enough, but more disappointingly, last week, we weren’t mentally tough enough to be brave enough to want the ball.”
The Sun Devils will look to bounce back during their two-game road trip. The loss to BYU offered a silver lining and that could spark something in the ASU squad.
“They’ve worked extremely hard this week,” Winkwort
h said. “We have worked both sides of the ball and there has been a great positive effort. So we are hoping for a good response this weekend.”
ASU now turns its focus to its next opponent, the Houston Cougars (3-3-1, 0-1). The Cougars fell in their conference opener to UCF (3-1-2, 1-0) 5-0. Though Houston struggled with UCF the Cougars are no pushover.
“We are expecting a tough team opponent,” Winkworth said. “They press extremely well, and for me potentially the toughest game we’ve played so far this season.”
The Sun Devils Captain, graduate student Lucy Johnson, took lessons from last week’s loss that must be remedied if ASU hopes to regain its footing.
“At times we struggled to get out in terms of playing out, which is usually one of our strengths. So we want to get back to that.”
After playing Houston, the Sun Devils will head to Central Florida for a matchup with the Knights, which offers a stern test. However, Winkworth isn’t focused on that matchup quite yet.
“It’s all about Houston, and we can only take one game at a time and then see where we are at the end of the season,” Winkworth said.
Arizona State looks to capture their first-ever intraconference victory over this road trip that begins on Thursday at 5:00 PM MT. They will battle it out with Houston before they head to Central Florida to take on the Knights, which will take place on Sunday at 9:00 AM MT.
