Soccer prepares for Oregon road trip

After starting their Pac-12 play with a win over Stanford last week, No. 20 USC women’s soccer team is gearing up for a road trip this weekend to take on Oregon State Thursday evening and the University of Oregon on Sunday afternoon.

Almost halfway through the season, the Trojans boast a 5-1-1 record, including 4-1-1 in non-conference play. And, the Trojans believe that they are only going to get stronger as they enter the second half of the season, and double down on conference matches.

“We didn’t necessarily start off as strong as we wanted to leading up to Pac-12 play,” said senior goalkeeper Anna Smith.  “It’s a long season… You have to take it one game at a time. You have to take it one practice at a time in order to really be successful and really be able to last the full season.”

Going into Oregon State, the Trojans are looking to build on their 2-1 victory over Stanford, which included a season-high nine saves from Smith and a brace (2 goals) from senior defender Nicole Payne, who was named this week’s Pac-12 Women’s Soccer Offensive Player of the Week.

“In the first half, we obviously got scored on, and we knew we were going to have to come back and compete even harder in the second half,” Smith said about the win over Stanford. “Resetting during the second half and just coming out and not allowing any shots was our mentality. No shots, no goals.”

Now, the Trojans will look to capitalize on their strong defense to generate more offense against Oregon State on Thursday.

“It’s really important in the weeks leading up to games to focus on ourselves, and feeling really confident,” Smith said. “Getting good shots off, making sure we’re making hard runs, making sure we’re clean out of the back and through the middle, just kind of fine-tuning everything from the back to the front.”

The Trojans will look to get creative on offense in order to break through a tough Oregon State defense.

“At times, they have shown a back three that sometimes turns into a back five with lots of numbers in the box defensively,” Head Coach Jane Alukonis said. “Trying to make sure we figure out ways to create good opportunities for ourselves… Hopefully we will have success in the counterattack, trying to get at them before they can turn into a back five.”

The Trojans are also looking to get more goal scorers involved, after relying on Payne exclusively against Stanford. 

“We’ve been working a lot on combination play and how our attackers all work together,” Alukonis said. “It’s an easier finish in the end if you have multiple people working together, rather than relying on one person to try and create an opportunity for themselves.”

Beyond this weekend, the Trojans are looking to continue improving as they take on the remainder of the Pac-12 conference.

“Getting the win over Stanford was huge, and going into this weekend it’s super important that we build off of that energy,” Smith said. “Every game we play, we are going to have a target on our back, so it’s important to go into these games and take care of business on the road.”

Despite the looming battles, the Trojans are looking forward to pushing themselves.

“We are very well aware that our conference is amazing, so [there’s] no easy games,” Alukonis said. “Every game will be competitive, but we are just trying to do the very best we can over the next nine games and try to finish at the top of the conference.”