Things get real for the Arizona Wildcats this week. The Big 12 soccer slate kicks off at Iowa State on Thursday. Finishing in the top eight of the conference is required if the team hopes to make the league tournament in Dallas at the beginning of November.
The Wildcats go into conference play with a 5-3 record. They have taken all three of their losses over the past five matches but go into the game against the Cyclones riding the high of a 5-2 victory over in-state rival GCU. The win buoyed the mood
in the locker room.
“I definitely think we ended on a positive note, especially going in the conference,” sophomore midfielder Lily Boydstun said. “That was the exact thing we wanted to do, the right note to go out on.”
Overall, the nonconference slate was a mixed bag for head coach Becca Moros and her team. There was a solid win over Denver, which is No. 66 in the official RPI. The rest of Arizona’s wins came against teams outside the top 100 with the next best victory coming over No. 115 UC Irvine.
On the positive side, Arizona has no bad defeats as far as RPI is concerned. All three of the Wildcats’ losses came against top 100 competition and two of them were on the road. The worst defeat was at the hands of No. 92 Pepperdine in Tucson. The road losses were at No. 10 Stanford and No. 70 California.
Up Next for Arizona Soccer
Arizona Wildcats (5-3) @ Iowa State Cyclones (3-1-2)
When: Thursday, Sept. 18 @ 4 p.m. MST
Where: Cyclone Sports Complex in Ames, Iowa
Streaming: ESPN+
Stats: Iowa State Live Stats
The Wildcats should go into the match against the Cyclones healthy. Sophomore defender Zoe Mendiola was in a sling after being injured in a hard play on Sunday. Her arm appears to be fine as the team heads to Ames, Iowa.
“It’s pretty mild, and all the stuff that’s come back from the docs is great,” Moros said. “So we’re happy.”
The lack of significant injuries means the focus can remain on the challenges the Cyclones’ players and head coach Matt Fannon’s game plan present.
“They’re pretty organized and tactical, and they’ve thrown different things at us when we’ve played them in the past, changing shapes,” Moros said. “So we assume we’ll see what we’ve been seeing from them [on film] this season, but he’s also changed stuff up to play against us in the past. So a little bit of an unknown there. But Matt’s a good coach and a good tactician. There’s some savvy players on the team that we will be concerned about and prepared for in our scouting report, but they’re going to be athletic and competitive in all the ways that we hope we will be, so I think it’ll be a good match.”
The two teams have played three times in their history with ISU holding the 1-2 edge, but this will be the first time they play as conference rivals.
“We’ve always have very close matches with them,” Moros said. “I think we’ve traded results.”
Two of the three contests have come since Moros arrived. All three have had identical 2-1 final scores. The Wildcats won the 2022 match in Tucson then dropped the 2023 match in Ames. The teams did not play during Arizona’s first year in the Big 12.
