The Vandals are working their way down the pre-season goals checklist.
After defeating Nevada on Oct. 23 at Guy Wicks field the Idaho soccer team crossed off one of its biggest marks — a berth in the WAC tournament.
Next up is a bit of unfinished business from Labor Day weekend.
The Vandals will be heading down to Boise to take on the Broncos for a “winner takes all affair” in the Governor’s Cup rivalry. A win in the rivalry match and the Vandals would be the first ever team to take a third win in a row in the series between Idaho, Idaho State and Boise State.
“We’d like to be the first,” coach Pete Showler said. “We’ll be the only team to ever record a hat trick of wins.”
The challenge for Idaho will be to manage its emotions and legs as the team prepares for the conference tournament the weekend following playing Boise State. Despite Boise State representing the last regular season match of the season, it doesn’t reflect on the WAC standings.
“We’re going to go in as well prepared as we can be,” Showler said. “We want to win.”
The Broncos shifted to the Mountain West from the WAC this season, which has presented challenges for the Bronco soccer team who comes into the match with only seven wins and is averaging less than a goal a game.
For Idaho, the rivalry still means as much as it did when the battles were intra-conference.
“There’s always a lot of pride in local rivalries,” Showler said. “Bragging rights for the state championship basically. The Governor’s Cup is a reflection of that, we’ve always shown that it’s really important to us.”
The Vandals have won the overall bout between the three major teams in the state the last two seasons, but have split the matches against Boise State the last two seasons, including a 3-1 Vandal victory in Moscow last season.
The teams still have familiarity with each other from earlier in the season when the Vandals hosted the first leg of the Governor’s Cup at Guy Wicks field when each team played, and defeated, Idaho State. Style of play isn’t a concern for Showler, however, as he said he believes this is a great opportunity for his team to get their legs under them and have more preparation for the conference tournament the following week.
“We’re going to go out there and play our game and take care of what we can take care of. Tactically we’ve had everything thrown at us this year,” he said. “For us we’ve had those grueling weekends in conference play prior to this, but we’ve punched our ticket. We can sit back and play one game this weekend and prepare ourselves for the conference tournament knowing we’ve already made it.”
In conference play the Vandals are currently in a four-team tie for second place with every team in conference still having league games remaining. Should cards fall in the Vandals’ favor and the team ends up in second place, they would receive a first round bye and get seeded directly into the semi-finals of the conference tournament.
Unfinished business with the Broncos needs to be taken care of first.
“We just have to make sure we’re out there for 90 minutes, full tilt, and just get after them,” Showler said. “It’s going to be a thunder type battle and it will never change from that.”