It was a tale of two matches for the Vandals.
The University of Idaho women’s soccer team split its last two matches, falling to the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Friday and defeating the Eastern Washington Eagles on Sunday, in what seemed like night and day performances.
The matches concluded a four-match, weeklong stretch which took the Vandals (4-6-2) as far as Provo, Utah and finished back in Moscow at Guy Wicks Field. Vandals get bullied by Bulldogs in Spokane The Vandals walked onto Gonzaga’s Mulligan Field in Spokane hoping to erase the painful memories of a 5-0 defeat at the hands of BYU just days earlier, and instead experienced more of the same. The Bulldogs dominated Idaho in a 3-0 victory.
Gonzaga controlled possession and dictated the tempo of the match from the start, keeping the Vandals on their heels.
The Bulldogs went up early in the 13th minute on a corner kick when freshman Cricket Harber snuck a loose ball past the Vandal defense. The Bulldogs added number two when Harber sent a free kick into the box that sophomore Ali Ohashi sent home for the ‘Zags.
“We didn’t play well at all,” Idaho coach Pete Showler said. “It didn’t look like we wanted it…they wanted it more.”
The Vandals were far more adept at creating offensive opportunities than they were the Tuesday night prior in Provo, however the lack of consistent possession meant that optimistic looks at the goal were few and far between.
“It’s a simple game and they made it look simple. We didn’t have the hunger today,” Showler said.
Idaho freshman midfielder Lilly Archer emphasized the need for the Vandals to play to their strengths getting the ball wide and moving players forward into the box to create opportunities to score.
“We’re the kind of team that’s going to destroy someone on the ground, we need to be positive, make those passes and find those gaps and then I think we’ll be successful,” she said. “We need to keep going forward and just trying to get that lucky goal.”
The match was a revenge of sorts for the Gonzaga Bulldogs who lost 1-0 to Idaho last season at Guy Wicks Field. Gonzaga’s coaches think the biggest difference between last year and this year’s matches were the Bulldogs’ abilities to capitalize on offensive opportunities.
“It was just finishing our chances,” Gonzaga assistant coach Derek Pittman said. “Last year down at Idaho we created a lot the post a couple of times but (didn’t score). For us today it was about not only creating those chances but putting them away.”
The Vandals returned home for a Sunday match-up with a reeling Eastern Washington squad that only had one win.
“We have to step up and play well, and if we don’t they’ll beat us,” Showler said. Vandals bounce back against scrappy Eastern Washington, end three game skid Showler said it had been a long time since the Vandals lost three games in a row, but that was the circumstance in which the Vandals found themselves before facing Eastern Washington.
In forceful winds and pouring rain that beat down throughout the second half the Vandals put a stop to their losing streak, holding off Eastern Washington for a 1-0 win, and gained confidence heading into conference play.
“Today we played our brand of soccer,” Showler said. “That was fun, they played some great soccer and played with a smile on their faces.”
The Eagles came into the match with only one win on the season and were a team that Showler described as “scrappy” and “hungry.”
In what could have been a trap game for Idaho, the Vandals turned the table on their opponent, doing to the Eagles what had been done to them for two consecutive matches.
Idaho consistently kept the ball in front of Eastern’s goalkeeper Jamie Walker forcing her to make nine saves and deal with 24 shots, 11 of which were on goal.
Despite the offensive output the Vandals failed to put one in the back of the net at halftime.
Junior Jill Flockhart halted the string of zeros the Vandals had put up in their last six halves of soccer a minute into the second half when she sent a left-footed rocket from the corner of the box into the top corner of the goal. Flockhart knew that a goal was inevitable for the Vandals with how well they were playing.
“Everybody was buzzing, everybody had the mentality that we could do it,” Flockhart said. “We came out in the second half knowing we had to put a ball in the net and we did that.”
The Vandals kept up the offensive pressure and made sure the match was never a contest.
“We dictated the play, it could have been five, or six to nil…we didn’t panic, controlled the play and just played with more fluidity to the game,” Showler said. “We played with a lot of authority, that’s what we need to do heading into conference (competition), it leaves us with a lot of confidence.”
There will be no rest for the weary. After the Vandals’ weeklong haul, the team will begin conference play Friday when they travel to Fresno State to take on the Bulldogs.