The Idaho women’s soccer program is just a year removed from graduating 10 seniors and over half of its starting line-up in the process. So what better way to break in one of the youngest teams in program history than a Big 12 opponent at home.
Idaho will host the Oklahoma Sooners on Aug. 16 at Guy Wicks Field in an exhibition match that will serve as Moscow United Appreciation Day. The match was made possible thanks to Oklahoma Head Coach Matt Potter, the former Washington State head man who agreed to the match since his Sooners will play at Gonzaga two days later.
“Coach Potter has done a great job of recruiting there and bringing in very good players,” Idaho coach Pete Showler said. “So when an opportunity arises to play a team of that caliber, it’s only going to be fantastic for our girls. And the learning perspective from that will be huge.”
The match came up at the last minute, which is why it was scheduled only nine days into fall practice, but proved to an opportunity the program didn’t want to pass up.
The match will be valuable for Idaho since freshmen will dominate the roster, with up to 11 newcomers vying for starting spots and playing time in the Idaho line-up. Idaho opens its regular season seven days later at Weber State, with its first five games all being on the road.
“Win, lose (or) draw it’s more of the learning experience and what we gain from it taking us into our opening weekend. Being so young. there will some bumps in the road for us without a doubt,” Showler said. “It’ll get those nerves out of the way, and it’ll give us a fresh idea of who’s going to be ready for that travel team.”
The exhibition match against Oklahoma is only the first noticeable match of many in a unique 2013 schedule for Idaho. Idaho will face familiar opponents such as Idaho State, Washington State and Eastern Washington, but will then get into a slate of completely unfamiliar opponents when it comes to conference play — Missouri-Kansas City, Grand Canyon and Cal-State Bakersfield in particular. The schedule also omits former WAC powers Denver and Utah State, who have moved on to other conferences.
“For us as coaches and for my staff and everyone in the backroom staff it’s a great experience because there’s a lot of unknowns, it keeps us on our toes. It’s like a fresh start, it’s phenomenal,” Showler said. “The unknown is what makes it interesting, but until we play these teams we’ll have no idea. That’s what makes this year interesting.”
Other top-notch programs Idaho was able to schedule include Creighton on the road and UNLV at home before conference play begins on Sept. 22.
Games against opponents such as Idaho State and Eastern Washington gives Idaho an opportunity to ease into its future conference schedule, when the programs enter the Big Sky Conference next season.
“We got a nice balance (to our schedule). We got Oklahoma, we got Creighton, we got WSU. Then we got a lot of our future opponents when we go to the Big Sky,” Showler said. “It’s exciting in a lot of ways. You balance your UNLVs with games that are going to be ultra-competitive. Yet, we have to test ourselves against the best.”
Sean Kramer can be reached at [email protected]