Coming off its first victory since October of last year, the Arizona women’s soccer team (1-2-0) looks to carry the winning momentum into Sunday’s match against Creighton University (1-2-1) in Omaha, Neb., at Morrison Stadium.
“We haven’t seen Creighton play in a number of years and we don’t have a lot of common opponents,” head coach Lisa Oyen said. “The focus is not to get as much information about them, but to focus on improving our performance.”
In their last meeting on September 28, 2007, the Wildcats hosted the Blue Jays in a 2-0 shutout. This brought Arizona’s record to 5-4-0 for the season.
It has been five years since the teams’ last meeting and a lot has changed to the Arizona roster and coaching staff.
“We are scoring some goals which is something that has been our main focus for awhile here,” Oyen said. “So just being able to get a number of goals in this game is important and creating those opportunities to put it in the back of the net. A lot of that is feeding off the win we had from Sunday and keeping the momentum going and having the confidence to prepare for this next game.”
So far this season, Arizona has taken 45 shots, 23 of which have been on goal with four of them making it into the back of the net. Junior midfielder Ana-Maria Montoya has a total of eight shots this season, three of which were on goal, and leads the team in scoring with three goals.
Defensively for Wildcats, junior goalkeeper Gabby Kaufman will lead the back line in her fourth start of the season attempting to shut out the competition. In three games, Kaufman has 15 saves.
According to Montoya, the Wildcats developed a strategy they look to incorporate in the match this Sunday.
“We have been trying to break up the game into every five minute,” Montoya said. “So control the first five minutes, then the next five minutes and then the win which is the most important.”
On the offensive end Montoya and her fellow midfielders and forwards “want to keep the ball on the floor and be really patient this weekend in getting goals.”
