Going into the game with Gonzaga on Saturday, the Vandals wanted to show how far they’d come under new coach and former Gonzaga assistant coach, Derek Pittman.
The Vandals carried their experience from last week’s 2-0 loss to Washington State into this weekend’s doubleheader and improved on their pressing on the defense and overall organization on the field, Pittman said.
The result in Spokane was a 1-1 draw against the Zags, followed by a 1-1 draw against Central Washington.
“I thought they played fantastic — they came out with the right mentality,” Pittman said. “We focused on what we needed to do to be successful and we executed it very well.”
Pittman implemented a strategy that emphasized attacking on offense. This plan proved effective early in the game, as the Vandals scored their first goal within about five minutes of the start of the match. The goal came when Kavita Battan slipped behind the defense and hit a low cross that Alyssa Pease hit into net, giving the Vandals a quick 1-0 lead.
After gaining the advantage, the Vandals had to defend the Bulldogs — who ran a very similar offense to the one they had been practicing.
“Gonzaga threw a number of numbers at us and put us under a lot of pressure — took a lot of shots on goal and took numerous corner kicks,” Pittman said.
After the Vandals first goal, they were able to hold the Bulldogs scoreless until right before the half when the Bulldogs tied the game. After that, the Vandals rose to the occasion and held Gonzaga scoreless for the entire second half and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
After the 1-1 draw against the Bulldogs, the Vandals faced the Central Washington Wildcats. Unlike their first contest of the day, the Vandals allowed the Wildcats to strike first about halfway through the first half.
“We played three very good halves out of four,” Pittman said. “We didn’t come out with the same energy — we took our foot off the gas a little bit.”
After a few halftime adjustments, the Vandals got back to being the aggressive, swarming defense that Pittman said will make them successful this fall. They didn’t allow CWU to offensively advance out of its half of the field for close to 20 minutes of the second half.
After a barrage of shots on the CWU goal, Pease was finally able to tie the game 1-1.
Pittman said the two games presented different challenges to the team that will help them move forward. The main thing the Vandals need to work on is creating cleaner scoring opportunities on offense, he said, adding that the team will learn from these games and it should help make them a better team.
Gonzaga and CWU play different styles of soccer and it showed during the games. In the first game, the Vandals struck early and had to focus on defending from Bulldog attacks. In the second game, Idaho had to claw back into the game after giving up the first score.
The Vandals will play next at home on April 12, when they host North Idaho College on the Sprint Turf before heading back to Spokane to face Concordia.
Joshua Gamez can be reached at [email protected]