The first class that Arizona soccer head coach Becca Moros recruited has come full circle. The group of five, which include four players who have spent their entire careers as Wildcats, will be honored
at the Utah game Friday night. They’re hoping it’s a high note that ends a two-match losing streak.
“It’s crazy how fast it came,” said senior defender Maia Brown. “I think we’re all kind of like, ‘Oh, wow. It’s like, four years flew by really quick!’ But we’re super excited to be home for it, and to have our fans again and…play together as a team and and get the win, hopefully, against Utah.”
Brown was recruited by previous head coach Tony Amato, but she stuck with Arizona after he left. It took a while for Arizona to hire a coach, but Brown had people in her corner helping her through the process.
“It was a difficult time,” Brown said. “I had literally just committed, I think, about a week before the coach changed, and then my club coach was like, well, just wait and see who comes. And I got to talk to Becca, and heard about her playing style, and it felt like it was probably a better fit for my playing style than Tony’s was. So I was super excited about just hearing what her plans were for the program, and I’m super glad I stayed.”
The other four were all brought to Arizona by Moros. Fellow defender Ella Hatteberg and midfielders Sami Baytosh and Trinity Dorsey came in as freshmen. Goalkeeper Olivia Ramey joined as a junior.
“They’re a tremendous group,” Moros said. “They’re really great leaders, they’re good people, and they do very well in the classroom. So they’re ambitious across the board. I think they really embody a lot of our values as a program, with the way they approach every day and come with the passion for the game and a desire to train hard and to get better. They are very team first type of people.”
Up Next for Arizona Soccer
Utah Utes (6-5-3, 1-2-2 Big 12) @ Arizona Wildcats (7-6, 2-3 Big 12)
When: Friday, Oct. 10 @ 7 p.m. MST
Where: Mulcahy Soccer Stadium in Tucson, Ariz.
Streaming: ESPN+
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
They still have five regular season matches to play after they face the Utes this week, but this is probably the most winnable game left on the schedule, home or away. Texas Tech, TCU, and Colorado are all ranked by the United Soccer Coaches. BYU has been ranked this season. Arizona State sports a 9-2-2 record.
That doesn’t mean Utah will present an easy challenge. The Utes had wins against two Power 4 teams in nonconference play. They played to a scoreless draw against a Cincinnati team that Arizona lost to last week. They also had a 1-1 draw against West Virginia, which defeated Arizona 3-0 last week.
More importantly, Arizona has had difficulties solving the Utah problem in recent years. The Wildcats lost to the Utes last year in Salt Lake City. It was a game they probably should have won, and it certainly came back to haunt UA when it was hoping for an NCAA Tournament berth.
Over the last decade, Arizona sports a 4-4-1 record against Utah. Six of those matches have taken place in Salt Lake City. The Wildcats are 2-1 at Mulcahy Soccer Stadium. None of those nine matches stretching back to 2016 have been decided by more than one goal.
“We always have a little bit of trouble with Utah,” Moros said. “Both teams like to have the ball. Both teams are pretty organized and have some of the same tactics in terms of shape and cover and different things like that. There’ll be probably two teams battling for some of the same advantages against each other, and they’ve got some good players.”
The challenge for the Wildcats will be scoring. On Tuesday, Mulcahy was set up for offensive drills. The team needs to address the inability to get goals or even take shots.
“Sunday was very out of character performance for us,” Moros said about the one-shot performance at Cincinnati. “I don’t even think we played much of our style of soccer in general, but we didn’t produce a lot in either game. Probably our least productive weekend that we’ve, had so far. And we’ll work through that and see if we can get better by Friday.”
In the two-game stretch back East, Arizona shot just five times. Four of those were at West Virginia.
The problem is bigger than that, though. The Wildcats have scored a total of four goals in their five Big 12 matches. Three of those came against Oklahoma State. They’ve been held scoreless in three of the five matches since conference play started in mid-September.
The defense is doing its job in many of those games. While the team gave up three goals to a West Virginia team that’s currently ranked 25th in the USC poll, they’ve held opponents to one or fewer goals in four of the five matches.
The defense is the most experienced part of the team. Arizona’s defenders were either starters or got extensive playing time last season. Ramey has been the starting goalkeeper for two years at Arizona and had 22 starts at Oklahoma before that. They are fighting to keep their level of play the same, and hope it can help lift the rest of the team.
“It’s been rough the past few games, but we know what we need to do as a defense,” Brown said. “And because we have that experience, and we’re pretty much the same as we were last year, we know kind of like what we need to do, and keeping that standard, and keeping communication high, and bringing that level to the whole team as well. So I mean, just trying to keep pushing and maintaining one as a unit.”
The front line is much younger. Both Narissa Fults and Aurora Gaines are sophomores, and Gaines has missed all or most of the past three matches due to an injury early against Oklahoma State. It likely did not help Fults and the other scorers to have one of their most dangerous offensive weapons off the field and unable to draw attention.
Gaines may not be back this week, but Moros is optimistic about her trajectory.
“She’s doing great,” Moros said on Tuesday. “So she’ll be working back in a little bit today, and so we should have her back pretty soon. So I think from a worst case scenario to where she’s at, I think we got her on pretty good terms, pretty quickly.”
However the match and the season turn out, it’s not what Brown will remember the most about being part of the program. The bonds will last longer than all of that.
“I love the summers and our summer trips when we go on the road,” Brown said. “Last year we went to Vegas and just being on the road with my team and doing the karaoke on the bus and getting to learn about each and every one of us a little bit deeper in that time that we have to spend.”
