Pac-12 competition is finally making its way back to the Bay. After a long offseason since conference play ended last season, the Bears are eager to kick off the first game of a five-game conference homestand this week.
No. 11 Cal women’s soccer will return to Edwards Stadium for a pair of games against the visiting Arizona schools. The Bears (7-0-3, 0-0-1 Pac-12) will take on Arizona State (6-3-0, 1-0-0 Pac-12) first with a 2 p.m. kickoff Friday. Cal returns to the pitch Sunday to host Arizona (5-2-3, 0-1-0 Pac-12) for a 1 p.m. game to close out the weekend.
The pair of home games offers the Bears the opportunity to extend their 10-game undefeated streak. With two more wins, Cal would match its 12-game streak from the 2000 season, when current Arizona State coach Kevin Boyd coached the Bears. Despite remaining undefeated, the Bears have yet to garner a Pac-12 win after returning from the conference opener at Utah with a tie.
“It’s obviously a really good feeling to be undefeated,” said junior midfielder Taylor Comeau. “I still think we are fighting for more because we have had quite a few ties.”
The tie against Utah puts Cal in the No. 4 spot in the conference standings, while Arizona State edges the Bears at the No. 3 spot after winning its conference opener in a last-minute nail-biter against USC. Arizona sits at No. 11 in the early Pac-12 season after losing its conference opener against UCLA. The Bears rebounded from the scoreless battle against Utah — in which Comeau believes temperature and altitude had the Cal squad feeling out of its element — and enter Friday’s game with a 3-0 win against San Francisco as fuel.
“I think Utah was the only game that we haven’t scored in this year, so it was good to get back into getting a good amount of goals and getting back into our rhythm,” Comeau said.
When the two squads faced off last October, the Bears topped the Sun Devils, 2-0. Despite that history, the Sun Devils may have the edge in momentum entering Friday’s game after snatching the win against USC in the final seconds of the game. The last-minute heroics earned Arizona State senior forward Devin Marshall Pac-12 Women’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Week honors.
“The Arizona teams are usually pretty physical,” Comeau said. “They like to put pressure on you. I think the main thing is we need to stay focused. We have talked about making sure we keep possession, because we are a pretty big possession-oriented team, and we know if we keep the ball, most teams can’t really keep up with us for the full 90 minutes.”
The Wildcats head into the weekend hoping to emerge from an early-season slump. The squad has battled inconsistency this season and journeys to California with only two wins in its last seven games. However, the Wildcats did beat the Bears, 2-1, in their last meeting last September.
“It was a pretty big upset for us,” Comeau said. “We definitely don’t want anything like that again.”
Taylor Brink covers women’s soccer. Contact her at [email protected].