tory 5: Soccer set to face Salt Lake United

The SUU soccer team will play its only home match of the spring season this Saturday against Salt Lake United of the Women’s Premier Soccer League.

The WPSL is an amateur league that harbors several top women’s soccer players from around the country and has several teams throughout the United States as well as several in Utah.

SL United finished 6-0-2 during their 2012 season, advancing all the to the WPSL Final Four.

As a team, SL United had a 42-8 advantage in goals scored and posted four shutouts.

The team consists of players from Clemson University, BYU, BYU-Hawaii, Gonzaga, University of Utah, Weber State, Washington, Salt Lake Community College, Westminster, Utah State and Notre Dame de Namur University, with multiple former collegiate All-Americans shaping the roster.

Head coach Becky Hogan said this weekend’s match will be a good test for her team.

“This weekend is going to be interesting because the caliber of player we’ll be playing against is like nobody we’ve ever seen before,” she said. “You have former collegiate players who have played four years and then beyond, they’re all professionals, and some went professional internationally, so the way that they play will be so sophisticated, so fast, so clean. That will be the real challenge for us, so it will be good to see how we adapt and play.”

Midfielder Nancy Brich said that to compete with this team, they need to just keep working.

“I think we need to keep working hard,” she said. “Keep working hard in practice and show our dedication and I think it will come out on the field.”

Coach Hogan said she expects her team to match up well against a much better opponent.

“I think we’re a group of people that rise to the occasion,” she said. “Our hope is that in this game we can match the level of play. The true measure will be how fast we can recognize and adapt to their changes.”

The T-Birds are coming off a weekend where they tied with Dixie State 1-1, with Birch putting up the goal for SUU, and fell to Utah Valley 1-0. Defender Megan Mower said the team was happy with their performance.

“I think we’ve improved a lot as a team since the beginning of spring,” she said. “I think in the Dixie (State) game we did a good job of not backing down, and in the past we’ve had a tendency to do that.”

Mower, who just recently became a defender, said she has been working on building a defensive mindset and becoming more aggressive.

Coach Hogan said she was satisfied with her team’s last couple of performances.

“I think that we’ve implemented the ideas that we’ve been working on really well,” she said. “All of the tactics we’ve been trying to stress came out in the game. As a coach that’s always nice to see, and it’s a good testament to the players and how focused they are and how much they’ve brought in.”

Brich said she thought the team played really well after a long break and played really well as a team.

The T-Birds will take on Salt Lake United-WPSL on Saturday in the Multi-Purpose gymnasium. Start time is set for 6 p.m.