If there was ever a time to go on a win streak, the beginning of conference play isn’t a bad place to do it. The Idaho soccer team is doing just that.
After opening Big Sky Conference play with road wins over Idaho State and Weber State, the Vandals (8-4-1 overall, 4-0 Big Sky) added two more wins this past weekend at home over Portland State and Sacramento State. Both games were shutout wins for the Vandals, which makes it three straight matches in which Idaho hasn’t allowed a goal.
Sophomore forward Oliva Baggerly scored the lone goal in the Portland State (3-9, 1-3) win on a free kick in the first half Friday. The Vandals allowed only two shots in the first half and just three shots on goal the whole match.
“Big Sky soccer sometimes isn’t pretty,” Idaho coach Derek Pittman said. “I’m just extremely proud of our players for working and grinding out another result … I thought our team did an excellent job shutting them down and really limiting their shots throughout the entire 90 minutes.”
That was only the first part of a dominant weekend for Idaho.
The Sacramento State Hornets (4-8, 2-2) came rolling into Moscow Sunday only to be the next victim blanked by the Vandals. In another 1-0 win, junior midfielder Clara Gomez scored the only goal and Idaho pitched another shutout behind freshman goalkeeper Amanda Poertner’s strong play in the net.
“We challenge our players each week to be very organized,” Pittman said. “One of the biggest things we did coming into this season was improving our overall defense. That includes set pieces. I thought overall Amanda (Poertner) didn’t have a whole lot to do throughout the game, but when she was needed, she came up big.”
Poertner has five games this year in which she hasn’t allowed a single goal. Three of them are conference games and the other two were earlier in the season in a win over Arkansas State and a tie with Seattle University.
“To be able to have the depth that we have on our roster,” Pittman said. “To call on for five minutes here or ten minutes there. All of these subs that are coming off the bench for us and giving us quality minutes.”
That depth goes beyond the active roster.
“Even the players that didn’t get to play,” Pittman said. “They’re training hard and preparing our starting group. The overall roster has been a huge positive for us.”
With an 8-4-1 overall record, the Vandals have doubled their win total from last year. Their four conference wins already match the total conference wins the team had last season. The last time Idaho won its first four conference matches was in 2010.
Three teams remain undefeated in Big Sky play, and at 4-0, the Vandals are tied with Eastern Washington (10-1-1 overall) for first place. Northern Colorado, at 3-0 in conference play (8-5 overall), sits in second.
The Vandals lost 2-1 to Eastern Washington in a nonconference match in Cheney, Washington, earlier this year.
The Vandals will play Montana (4-7-2, 1-2-1) 1 p.m. Sunday at Guy Wicks Field.
Ben Evensen can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @BenE_VN