PULLMAN, Wash. – The No. 19 Sun Devil soccer team concluded its road trip to the state of Washington with a scoreless tie at No. 21 Washington State on Sunday.
The Sun Devils (8-2-4, 1-1-3 Pac-12) came in looking for a split after losing for the first time in more than a month on the front end of the trip, a 2-1 decision at Washington on Friday.
Like the Sun Devils, the Cougars (7-2-3, 2-2-1) were also looking for a win not only to salvage the weekend following a loss on Friday, but also to end a two-game losing streak. The Cougars came into the game with one of the Pac-12’s best defenses as they had seven shutouts in their first 11 games and had allowed more than one goal only once this season.
A battle of wills would ensue and the result, given the circumstances, was not all that surprising.
“We wanted a win and so did they. We both ended up with a tie and a loss (this weekend) and it’s not ideal, but these are good teams we are playing,” said Sun Devil head coach Kevin Boyd. “It was a tough game. I thought Washington State played well. In the first half we didn’t play well but we improved as the game went on. In the second half the game started to turn in our favor and eventually evened out and I thought it was that way for the rest of the game.”
The star of the match for the Sun Devils was senior goalkeeper Chandler Morris, who made seven saves, several of which were game-savers for the Sun Devils, who were not able to get into a consistent flow on the offensive end.
“Chandler was spectacular in goal,” said Boyd. “She was the player of the match for sure. We could not find a good, clean chance on offense and were not linking passes quite the way we need to. Give Washington State credit for that, too. We need to take a day off and get our legs under us and start working on keeping the ball a little better like we were doing a couple weeks ago.”
The Cougars concluded the match with advantages in both shots (19-11) and corner kicks (16-6). Although WSU was very much on the plus side in both statistical categories, the Sun Devils started to even things out as the match wore on. In the second half and overtime the game became much more even as the Cougars’ advantages over the last 65 minutes of the game were 12-7 in shots and 8-6 in corners.
“If you take away the first 25 minutes of the game, it was a pretty even match,” said Boyd. “They generated an awful lot of corners in the game – 16 of them – but we did an excellent job defending them and making it difficult.”
Boyd did not think the Sun Devils got off to a slow start in the game so much as Washington State was feeding off the energy that goes with playing at home.
“Anytime you play a team on their home field they are going to have a little extra to them and I thought they brought that and it took us a while to get that,” explained Boyd. “It was not a lack of effort on our part. We were just having a hard time putting it all together. I think the game was even after we settled into it and figured out what we needed to do."
Morris made several big saves for the Sun Devils, many of which were from point-blank range. The Cougars had at least one dangerous look in both the first and second half and overtime, but each time Morris was able to turn them back.
Mackenzie Semerad led the Sun Devils in both shots (3) and shots on goal (2). Cali Farquharson was the only other Sun Devil to register multiple shots with two, including one shot on goal. Also taking shots that forced WSU goalkeeper Gurveen Clair to make a save were Tommi Goodman and Jazmarie Mader.
Sunday’s game represented the second time in as many contests that Morris posted seven saves while she also recorded her fifth complete shutout of the season (5.5 overall). It was also the 18.5 career shutout for Morris, who is second on ASU’s all-time list for shutouts.
The Sun Devils were not able to score any goals for the first time this season as they had scored at least one goal in the season’s first 13 games, including eight games with two or more goals.
Sunday’s tie broke a streak in the ASU-WSU series in which the visiting team had won the previous five games.
The Sun Devils play the last of three consecutive road games on Friday (2 p.m.) when they travel to Los Angeles to take on No. 23 USC. The game will be televised by Pac-12 Networks.