LOS ANGELES – The Arizona State women’s soccer team concluded its road trip to Los Angeles with a 1-1 tie at UCLA on Sunday.
Although they did not come away with the win, there were plenty of positives to be taken from Sunday’s result. Coming in having lost seven games in a row and plagued with a spate of injuries in recent weeks, the Sun Devils not only came back to tie the game after getting down early, but nearly upended a quality opponent that was coming off a win in which it scored five goals two days earlier.
“I thought we played with a lot of energy and played with tremendous effort,” ASU head coach Kevin Boyd said. “For a team that lost its last seven games we are asking them to keep rising up and find a way and we have been doing it against a lot of odds. Truthfully, taking a point on the road against a team like UCLA is not easy to do. That is a good result. Could we have won it? Absolutely. But I think it is a good result and we’ll take the point.”
ASU (4-7-1, 0-4-1 Pac-12) took four more shots than the Bruins (16-12) and had a slight edge in corner kicks (7-6). Both teams had opportunities to win it in overtime, but neither team could find the go-ahead goal.
“I think it is probably a fitting tie because UCLA had moments,” Boyd said. “They hit the post late and they definitely had some moments, but all and all, I’m really proud of the team today and the way they responded from Friday’s loss (at USC).”
Things did not go ASU’s way early on as the Bruins took the lead in the ninth minute on a goal by Kodi Lavrusky.
It did not take the Sun Devils long to respond to UCLA’s early score. Five minutes later ASU would knot the score at 1-1 when sophomore Jessica Raybe wound up and found the sweet spot on a ball that came to her inside the box . Sophomore forward Aly Moon (initially sent ball in the box) and senior forward Cali Farquharson (tapped ball out to Raybe) both assisted on the goal.
“She basically kicked it as hard as she could and it went it,” Boyd said of Raybe’s goal. “I thought she played really well in the first half. She got the ball and she was beating people. I thought we probably saw the best game we have seen from her yet.”
Raybe’s goal provided the Sun Devils with the exact response they needed after falling behind 1-0. For the remainder of the first half it was the Sun Devils who were the more aggressive team as they held advantages of 9-4 in shots and 5-2 in corner kicks at the half.
The two teams would play on even terms for most of the second half as each squad got off four shots.
Both teams had great chances to win it in the second overtime. In the 104th minute the Bruins reeled off three shots within the span of a minute. Sun Devil senior goalkeeper Chandler Morris stopped two shots during the sequence, but the middle shot nearly ended the game but hit the post. Then, in the 108th minute, senior McKenzie Berryhill, who had three shots in the game, nearly won it when she slipped behind the defense, but her shot from the 18 was high.
Farquharson led ASU in both shots (6) and shots on goal (3), while Morris came up with six saves for the Sun Devils.
The Sun Devils played without sophomore defender Madison Stark, who missed the game after being injured in Friday’s game at USC. It was the first game Stark missed as a Sun Devil after starting the first 33 games of her career. ASU had three players who made the first start of their career on Sunday: sophomore Keeley Gormley (midfield), freshman Melinda Gutierrez (defender) and sophomore Madison Kmetko (midfield).
In the end, Boyd said Sunday’s result was one everyone contributed to.
“We had 19 field players eligible today and every single one of them played and so we used absolutely everyone we had to try and get the result today,” Boyd said. “I thought we got good commitment today and that’s what we wanted. I just thought a lot of people came out and just played harder.”
The Sun Devils return to action on Thursday night (7 p.m.) when they conclude their current three-game road trip at Washington in a game that will be televised live by Pac-12 Networks.