"Preparation wise it is better for us to only have to prepare for Stanford," head coach Graham Winkworth said of his team's one-match weekend. "But, it is also better for the other team as well because we have all got one game this weekend. We have managed to give the girls an extra day off this week to have their bodies recover. When you are playing during this time of season, it is not just about x's and o's or having the right mentality. It is about having your body rested. We will be fired up as the top-ranked team, Stanford, in the country is coming to town. We have six games remaining to accomplish some of our team goals. If we can do those things, we will see where we are in early November."
Saturday's match will continue a stretch of four matches for the Sun Devils against teams ranked in the top-20. The grueling stretch of games started last weekend with a trip to Los Angeles to face No. 15 UCLA, before ending the trip at No. 2 USC. Following Saturday's meeting with No. 1 Stanford, ASU will host No. 19 Washington State on Oct. 18.
While the Sun Devils suffered a pair of losses on the road this past weekend, ASU turned in a solid effort, statistically. If not for a rough opening 20-minutes against UCLA, the Sun Devils would have likely found themselves in a position to win the match against the Bruins late in the contest. Likewise, in Sunday's match against No. 2 USC, The Sun Devils scored just the fifth goal of the season against the stout USC defense. The goal from Casey Martinez marked the second goal scored on the Trojans in their last six games played.
"It was always going to be a challenge during this period of the season as we play against the very best teams in the nation," Winkworth said of the daunting challenge his schedule has created for his team. "Our goal was to try and make sure we were still in both matches late. On Thursday our opponent (UCLA) was full of some of the very best players in America. I thought that after a very poor opening 15 minutes, the team played very well and actually created the better of the chances. Unfortunately we were unable to overcome our poor start and ended up losing."
"Sunday's game against No. 2 USC was an even more challenging opponent," Winkworth added. "Coach McAlpine and I go back a long ways from our time in Alabama. He has done an excellent job and is a great recruiter and coach. USC was the better team and deserved their victory of 3-1. What I was pleased with was that with 15 minutes to go it was still a one-goal game and we were still creating chances. The shots on goal total was 10-9 in their favor and so we really gave them a battle."
In the RPI, the Sun Devils enter the week ranked No. 64. That is an important mark for a squad looking to earn their first postseason berth since 2014. The Sun Devils find themselves squarely on the bubble of the 64-team NCAA postseason tournament, with six matches still to be played this season.
The Sun Devils will enter Saturday's contest looking to snap a four game slide against the Cardinal. ASU, who will take the field with a 4-14-3 record against Stanford, will be aiming for a signature home win over the top-ranked team in the NCAA. For Winkworth, a win Saturday would mark his second career win over a top-ranked team, after beating then No. 1 Florida State while serving as the head coach at South Alabama in 2016.
"The question you have to ask yourself is, 'is it physically possible'," even if for us unlikely, to win the game," Winkworth said of his team's ability to knock off the visitors. "As long as the answer is yes, then you step onto the pitch and you give it your best because it is possible. That's what the mentality that the South Alabama team had, and they prevailed. We have actually created more chances this season than that South Alabama team did that season, so we can have success. We just will have to be able to defend for 90-plus minutes against the best attacking players in the country. That is going to be the challenge for us."
Helping the upset minded Sun Devils is the fact that for the first time int their last three outings, ASU will take the field with a full strength squad as the Sun Devil's leading goal scorer, Nichole Douglas, will rejoin the team this week after missing last weekend's games due to an international call-up.
"The team responded great," Winkworth said of how his team coped without the talented freshman attacker. "We knew going into the season that we would be missing players. We have only had everybody available for five games this season. So, we knew it was going to happen. All last week during training, Marleen Schimmer was really stepping into a great attacking role. She continued to lead the line very well, especially against UCLA. We had great chances to score some good goals, but we were just barely out shot on target 10-9 against USC and 6-4 against UCLA. If you would have offered me that before the game, I would have taken it and hoped that we score more goals than them, but it just was not to be."
From a full season perspective, ASU enters Saturday's contest holding on at No. 64 in the national RPI. That is an important mark for a squad looking to earn their first postseason berth since 2014. The Sun Devils find themselves squarely on the bubble of the 64-team NCAA postseason tournament, with six matches still to be played this season.
Following the match against Stanford, ASU will remain home to host No. 12 Washington State and Washington next week. Action will get underway for the Sun Devils in their ninth week of regular season play with an 11 a.m. match against the Cougars, before ending the week with a 1 p.m. meeting with Washington on Sunday, Oct. 21.
Fans can follow all of the action from the 2018 season by following @SunDevilSoccer on twitter.