It would never happen in the Pac-12, but the Big 12 soccer schedule has teams playing home and away in the same week during conference play. Sometimes more than once. Arizona will do it for the next two
weeks with this week being especially tough.
“Some of the teams get that in the Big 12 depending on who you get for a single game or two-game weekend,” said Arizona head coach Becca Moro. “So, it might just fall on you some years and other years not.”
The Wildcats have to fly to Provo, UT to play BYU on Thursday. While the Cougars are not as strong this year as in the recent past, they still present challenges.
“BYU is a super talented, athletic, competitive team,” Moros said. “It’s a difficult environment to play in. They have great fan support and things like that. So I think just continuing to lock in on the things that we do well. We’ve had a little bit of trouble building out of the back in the last few games, maybe got a little rattled early, and just need to kind of settle those things back down. Other than that, it’s just hopefully getting some consistency back in our performance.”
After that, the Wildcats have to hop on another plane so they can be back in Tucson to play No. 12 Texas Tech on Sunday. Next week, they host No. 14 TCU before flying to Boulder for No. 21 Colorado. They wind up the regular season at home against ASU.
Up Next for Arizona Soccer
Arizona Wildcats (7-7, 2-4 Big 12) @ BYU Cougars (7-4-2, 2-3-1 Big 12)
When: Thursday, Oct. 16 @ 6 p.m. MST
Where: South Field in Provo, UT
Streaming: ESPN+
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
No. 12 Texas Tech (10-1-2, 4-0-2 Big 12) @ Arizona Wildcats (7-7, 2-4 Big 12)
When: Sunday, Oct. 19 @ 12 p.m. MST
Where: Mulcahy Soccer Stadium in Tucson, Ariz.
TV/Streaming: ESPNU/Watch ESPN
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
Moros thinks the challenge this week will be more difficult than next because of the order of the games and the fact that Texas Tech will actually be traveling less between games than Arizona will.
“Texas Tech is here playing ASU, so they’ll travel in but then they don’t travel between games, whereas we have basically a travel before each game,” Moros said. “So it does kind of, I would say, negate some of a home field advantage, in terms of they have less travel to come play us than we have to play them…I think it’s do the best you can with the travel, the flights, the dehydration, things like that.”
The schedule may be unfavorable and unfortunate, but the fact that Arizona dropped at least two winnable games—including its game against Utah on Sunday—means there’s little wiggle room left. At this point, the 11th-place Wildcats will not even make the Big 12 tournament. A win over 10th-place BYU would help, but there’s a lot of hill to climb after that.
If they’re going to do that, they have to get their offense in gear. The Wildcats have only scored four goals in Big 12 play, and three of those came against last-place Oklahoma State. They have had a total of 10 shots over the past three games with only two on goal. Oklahoma State is the only Big 12 team they have managed double-digit shots against.
Part of recent issues have been related to injuries. Forwards Aurora Gaines, Narissa Fults, and Rose Calkins have either missed games or had minute restrictions. Forward Jessica Bedolla was supposed to start against Utah, but she got hurt in warmups.
Overall, Moros is not unhappy with the offense. While she allowed that the game at West Virginia was not up to their standards, she thinks the work by the offense has been up to those standards more often than not. However, the lack of goals is wearing on the team.
“West Virginia was not a productive game for us in the attacking third,” Moros said. “But other than that, when we haven’t scored, we’ve still been pretty productive in the attacking third…I think there is some confidence that can get shaken, and you got to bring that back into the group.”
How do the players think they can solve the problem?
“Our runs and crosses need to be—timing needs to be perfect and sometimes we just need to shoot faster,” said senior midfielder Sami Baytosh. “Or not faster, but instead of waiting for that perfect opportunity, we just need to shoot more. Make the keepers save it.”
