(Photo via Paige Cook/WCSN)
Arizona State Women’s Soccer began its 2022 fall season in an up-and-down manner on Saturday Night from Sun Devil Soccer Stadium with a 2-2 draw against Long Beach State.
The game won’t appear on any records come the end of the season, perhaps thankfully for the Sun Devils, who didn’t have their best performance. The silver lining is that the 90 minutes that went down against The Beach came against a team that had already earned its sea legs in an earlier pre-season fixture.
“Tonight, I think we looked like a team that hadn’t played an 11-a-side game for a while,” ASU head coach Graham Winkworth said. “Especially in that first half against a team that played three days ago and have got a little bit more rhythm than us.”
The first half saw Arizona State try some very rigid tactical work, which is fairly standard for a team in their one and only tune-up game. The Sun Devils set up in a 4-3-3 middle block in the first 45. ASU chose not to press the LBSU backline, instead keeping a low line of engagement with its starting front three of graduate forward Nicole Douglas, graduate forward Olivia Nguyen and sophomore forward Keri Matthews.
This allowed Long Beach to maintain a lot of the ball early and generate lots of chances via their possession-based attack.
LBSU scored very early. The Big West side was, quite frankly, dominant out of the gates.
ASU struggled with balls over the top, and LBSU recognized it quickly, pushing a ball over the Sun Devil centerbacks and into the feat of their striker whose shot was initially saved by the onrushing blue streak of freshman goalkeeper Kayla Letcher. The net was wide open, and freshman forward Felicia Jastré Hogberg pushed it home to make it 1-0.
Arizona State did have some bright spots from then on in the first half. Freshman midfielder Enasia Colon and the excitingly quick Matthews were constant threats for the Sun Devils.
“When [Matthews] gets to full flow she’ll be one of the best wingers in the country,” Winkworth said. “I’ve said that all along, and I won’t change my mind on that she’s an exceptional player.”
Colon came as advertised from the talent factory that is IMG. Winkworth was impressed with her ability in tight spaces and ability to make things happen.
“I think [Colon] got a very bright future here,” Winkworth said. “I think she’ll give us some very bright moments this season. But also, she’ll give us some extremely bright moments over the next four.”
The Sun Devil head coach was very quick to point out the inexperience Colon still has at this level.
“She’s very young,” Winkworth said. “So she’s got to learn not only how we play but also how her teammates play, you know, around her.”
However, the rest of this Sun Devil team isn’t really young.
Graduate midfielder Eva Van Deursen and graduate midfield and team captain Alexia Delgado joined Colon in a midfield trio that sat behind the trident attack of Matthews, Douglas and Nguyen. Delgado, a member of the Mexican Women’s National Team, will bring loads of needed experience to Arizona State once again this season.
“You know soccer is always both ways you can be winning, and suddenly you’re 2-0 down,” Delgado said regarding the calming presence she can bring to the team. “Emotions play a big role in the team, and being able to just handle the emotions in the game is such an important part of the game.”
Delgado brought up a 2-0 scoreline solely to serve as a reference point for her leadership intangibles, but the Sun Devils did find themselves down 2-0 after a mistake from sophomore goalkeeper Julia Ortega, who played in the second half.
With 15 minutes to go, the Sun Devils turned up the heat, looking much closer to a prime German National team side than a team that was trailing 2-0. They pressed higher and pushed harder. No one was more noticeable in the mentality shift than Van Deursen, who scored the first goal of ASU’s season in the 75th minute after a beautiful skill and service from sophomore winger Kennedy Mayo.
Van Deursen was doing things differently tonight. The 5-foot-5 midfielder normally is a calm and composed distributor of the ball, a fulcrum for ASU’s attack, but on Saturday, Van Deursen was doing much more driving with the ball glued to her foot. She often carried the ball herself into the attacking third, which is something she has wanted to add to her smooth game for some time now.
“I think for me, moving the ball was definitely a strength of mine,” Van Deursen said. “Adding the dribble and maybe committing some players and finding another teammate, that’s definitely something that I want to add to my game and today was the start.”
Van Deursen’s goal was the first of two that Arizona State needed, and it did not take very long for the second to come along.
Douglas scored it.
She scores goals quite often. Through four seasons in Tempe, Douglas has scored 46 official goals, putting her second on ASU’s all-time scoring list.
Douglas, the London native, was the Sun Devils’ team leader in goals a season ago and found the back of the net on a simple striker’s finish into the bottom corner in the 78th minute. ASU’s goal burst was enough to level up the score even if they didn’t give its best on the evening.
“I thought we came out in the second half, we had a little bit more composure and possession of the ball,” Winkworth said. “Still making some decisions that we can do better on in the final third, and then we’ve also seen where we’ve got to do at the other end of the pitch as well to improve.”
Defensively ASU was nothing special but was lacking some potentially key pieces as senior Lieske Carleer played minimally, and sophomore defender Olivia Coleman did not dress for the scrimmage. Incoming freshman goalkeeper Pauline Nelles is someone to keep an eye on when she returns. Where is she, you might ask? At a u20 World Cup, with Germany.
“Pauline [Nelles] is one of the best young goalkeepers in the world,” Winkworth said. “That will be a huge addition for us. We’ve got some work to do to improve in that area.”
Next up for Arizona State is a home match on Thursday, August 18th against, defending Summit League champions, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits.
