(Photo: Paige Cook/WCSN)
ASU returned to Tempe for the first time in three weeks to face Pac-12 opponent No. 21 USC. They entered the match off a draw to an underperforming Washington team and looked to bounce back big against a rank conference foe. However, the overwhelming winds had a different idea as they blew the Sun Devils off their pedestal.
The external factors of dust-filled winds plagued the Sun Devils towards the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half as they were never able to recover. USC would take advantage of ASU discombobulation to win 2-1.
Before the strong winds, ASU dominated both sides of the pitch. Defensively and offensively, they were creating opportunities for themselves while simultaneously halting any Trojans’ momentum.
“Thought the first half was excellent,” head coach Graham Winkworth said. “I thought we were the better team.”
The Sun Devils did not allow any space for USC to create any offense. A significant part of the initial defensive success for ASU was graduate student defender Jadya Hylton-Pelaia who was super active in the first half.
“[Hylton-Pelaia] is class, she had a great game, and I thought she was one of our best players tonight,” Winkworth said. “She’s good defensively one on one, good offensively one on one.”
Hylton-Pelaia played both sides of the field nearly flawlessly in the first half, getting into passing lanes, blocking USC advancements into the box, and pressuring the ball towards the opposite side of the pitch to generate ASU shot opportunities. She led the Sun Devils’ defensive side with an aggressive and suffocating type of defense that was effective.
ASU was in a groove, and that could be thanks to having key returns from the injury start to mesh into the Sun Devils scheme. Senior midfielders Alexia Delgado and Eva Van Deursen returned to form and showcased their flashes before their injuries.
“When you’re battling against a team as talented as USC, you want your top-class players available,” Winkworth said. “We aren’t match-fit, and the only way to get match-fit is, unfortunately, to play games, so if we had those players available during the non-conference part of the season, then they would be match fit now.”
While the Sun Devils returning players look not to show much rust, their usual producers were making a reappearance. Senior forward Nicole Douglas would stop on a dime and score a spinning goal kick in the 30th minute after a superb cross and pass from senior forward Cori Sullivan to infiltrate the box.
That was Douglas’ 12th goal of the season, tying her for most in NCAA division one women’s soccer. She has been a massive part of the Devil’s offensive game plan, and the Trojans could not combat her dynamic play.
Near the end of the first half, the Sun Devils looked to enter the halftime break encouraged by their play against a highly talented Trojans team. However, in the second half, the winds spawned out of nowhere and attacked the ASU side of the field. The players were visibly uncomfortable from the dust that the wind was picking up when USC took over.
USC junior forward Hannah White split a pass between two ASU defenders to find freshman forward Simone Jackson on the left side, where she slid it under the diving ASU freshman goalkeeper Birta Gudlaugs in the 43rd minute.
“We were the better team in the first half,” Douglas said. “We switched off for half a second, and ultimately they punished us.”
Douglas continued how ASU entered the half motivated from the USC goal to respond. However, the momentum had utterly changed with that one goal, as when the second half began, the two teams had both done a 180 switch.
ASU, still shaken up from the wind, could not find a rhythm early as the dust was still blowing hard against the Sun Devils.
“[USC] had a 60 mph wind, so they pressed a little bit more,” Winkworth said. “That first 20 minutes, we couldn’t get out partly because of that, we tried to keep it down and they pressed very well.”
The offense was all out of sorts, not able to generate any kind of offensive spark. Douglas touched on that and said they couldn’t focus on external factors like the wind, only what they could control, which she believed was to create more opportunities in the box.
USC was attacking nonstop to begin the half putting pressure on Gudlaugs and the Sun Devils defense. The Trojans would have 12 shots in the second half alone, one of which would meet the back of the net as USC redshirt senior midfielder Savannah DeMelo would grab a shot rebound and sink it to give USC the 2-1 lead in the 60th minute.
“I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but the wind was so hard against us,” Van Deursen said. “We struggled a lot in the first 15 minutes of the second half.”
The wind was handicapping the Sun Devils’ ability to move the ball in the initial going. ASU could not find their footing at any point on the offensive end, which the wind can take some credit for, but the Trojan press was suffocating for the Sun Devils.
ASU would have opportunities late to tie the game, one being an 88th-minute corner kick that seemed to hang in the air for hours only for the USC defense to head it out and end the game for the Sun Devils in a 2-1 loss.
“Obviously disappointed in the result,” Winkworth said. “But overall, I am pleased with our effort, but again we didn’t deal with those elements in the second half, and USC did, so congratulations to them.”
The first 40 minutes saw the Sun Devils dominate a ranked opponent on every aspect of the game, but their inability to adapt to the external environment caused them to drop a critical Pac-12 game bringing their record to 8-2-1 and 0-1-1 in conference play so far. They stay in Tempe for their next match against No. 3 UCLA, which will prove to be massive to put the Sun Devils season back on track.
“We need to stay switched on the whole 90 minutes,” Douglas said. “That’s going to be our main focus for Sunday because we can play our soccer very good, we can play in the Pac-12, but we need to stay switched on.”
