There is nothing about this weekend that the ASU soccer team can afford to lose.
With Friday night comes not only a trip to Tucson and the first meeting between the Wildcats and the Sun Devils since last year’s 2-1 double-overtime loss for ASU, but also the fifth game of the 2009 Pac-10 regular season.
And this time, it’s about more than pride.
For both teams, the regular season has brought disappointment, and a different team than what may have been conceived based on non-conference performance.
The 447-minute scoring drought for UA that dates back to Oct. 2, and the four-game winless streak the Sun Devils are riding, suggest a rivalry matchup sure to promise an even more intense intrastate competition than usual.
Last year, ASU coach Kevin Boyd acknowledged the comparable position of the Sun Devils and the Wildcats. This year, the two teams are in similar positions again.
“The matchup is even, and our results are similar,” Boyd said heading into last season’s matchup. “I think our abilities on the field are similar going in.”
The Wildcats hosted Washington and Washington State in week two of the regular season, and were outshot by Washington 14-5.
Sunday afternoon went a little differently.
UA outshot the Cougars 12-6, and that tilt became the first time the Wildcats have outshot an opponent since they faced Loyola Marymount on Oct. 2. But the Wildcats still came up on the short end of a 1-0 decision.
Still, it is not the two consecutive losses to UW and WSU, but instead UA’s win over ASU in the 2008 season that the Sun Devils remember.
For the first time in program history, UA came out on top of ASU with a win that also gave the Wildcats their 100th victory in program history and snapped the Sun Devils’ seven-game unbeaten streak.
That matchup allowed senior midfielder Carly Kallas to score the only goal for the Sun Devils to make it the third year in a row she was able to get on the board against UA.
“It’s always great to score on your rivals,” she said after the loss. “Anybody would have cheered and been excited. I was just excited because [that was] my third year in a row scoring on [the Wildcats]. I got really excited about that, but obviously it wasn’t enough.”
Kallas and Co. will seek to start a new winning streak against their rivals when the game kicks off at 7 p.m. in Tucson.
Reach the reporter at emiley.darling@asu.edu
