BYU takes its second road trip of the year, traveling to play at Pacific on Thurs., Sept. 14 and then returns to Utah to play at instate rival Utah State in Logan on Sat, Sept. 16 at 1 p.m.
The Cougars enjoyed two home games this past week, beating Colorado 3-2 in front of the largest crowd ever at South Stadium, 4, 742 fans. That attendance record ranks second in BYU history at a women's sporting event. On Saturday nigfht under rainy skies, BYU hosted Fresno State, falling 1-0 to the Bulldogs on a first half goal. The Cougars had several scoring opportunities throughout the night, but were unable to get the ball in the net.
This week the team looks to rebound from the disappointing loss and get back into the winning column. The no. 23 ranked Cougars travel to Stokcton, Calif., to play at Pacific who is currently 5-0-1 on the season and are 2-0 at home.
BYU is 4-1-0 on the year and returns eight starters and 22 letterwinners from last year's team that went 15-2-4 and competed in the NCAA First Round.
The Cougars are led in scoring by sophomore Alyssa Vander Veur with two goals for four points. Another sophomore, Katie Larkin has three points off of one goal and one assist. Larkin also leads the team in shot on goal with 12. Once again, BYU continues to have a stingy defense holding opponents to just 6.8 shots per game, and only allowing four goals to date. After five games, the team outshoots its opponents 75 to 34.
Pacific is a member of the Big West Conference, and returns all 11 starters from last year's team that went 10-9-1. They are led in scoring by junior forward Mandi Van Dorn who has four goals and one assist for her team leading five points off of 24 shots. Bunny Dickson another junior forward and Carmen Padilla, a senior midfilder/forward lead the team in assists with two assists a piece. The Tigers are outshooting opponents 117 to 46 and the stingy defense has yet to allow a goal.
These two teams have met in two previous meeting, with each team winning on its home field. BYU beat Pacific on 9//25/99 2-0, while Pacific beat the Cougars 3-2 on Oct. 31, 1997.
Pacific has impressive wins over Colorado College (1-0), Air Force (3-0), and Gonzaga (1-0). They also tied Hawaii (0-0) in overtime.
Following Thursday night's game, the Cougars travel back to Utah and head up north to Logan to battle instate rival Utah State in a Saturday afternoon contest.
Utah State has compiled a 2-4-0 record so far this year with wins over Weber State (1-0) in overtime and a 1-0 victory over Idaho State (1-0) in Pocatello. At home they have a 1-0 record to date.
The Aggies are led in scoring by junior forward Dana Peart, from Brigham City. She's tallied three points from one goal and one assist. Also scoring for Utah State are senior midfielder Sierra Smith and Andra Hansen , who have a goal each. In the shot category, opponents are shooting a total of 79 shots to the Aggies 55, that's an average of 9.2 shots per game vs. 13.0 shots per game respectively.
Utah State returns six starters and eight letterwinners from a team that went 7-9-4 last year. They are in their second season as members of the Western Athletic Conference, and are one of two teams from the WAC the Cougars will play. BYU already played Fresno State last week.