Arizona soccer didn’t really send its eight seniors out on a high note since they have five matches left. It did make their senior night one to remember with a 2-1 victory over BYU at Mulcahy Soccer Stadium.
Two days ago, Wildcats head coach Becca Moros said the team needed to have more minutes of good defense and more minutes of effective attacking if they hoped to beat the Cougars. She wasn’t prepared to say they had more such minutes after Friday’s match, but she knew one thing.
“In the critical ones, we did,” Moros said. “We put it in the net, so I think I’ll just count on those.”
While it was a night for the seniors, the freshmen and juniors stepped up to give them their biggest win of the season.
Freshman forward Narissa Fults got the start because of an injury to senior Nyota Katembo. Fults rose to the occasion. She has made impressive runs all season. They have resulted in two assists and some shots that didn’t go. This time it paid off with the first goal of her career to put Arizona up 1-0 in the 13th minute.
WHAT A MOMENT! pic.twitter.com/2pBYNKh1pV
— Arizona Soccer (@ArizonaSoccer) October 5, 2024
“Finally!” Fults said. “Yeah, I’m just happy.”
She wasn’t the only one who was happy.
“I was really happy for Narissa, that she broke through,” Moros said. “We’ve been waiting for that. She’s a tremendous force and has a lot of potential, so I thought it was nice. I really enjoyed watching the way her teammates were trying to find her more and trying to bring her into the flow of the game better.”
Arizona held that lead until halftime. Just 35 seconds into the second half, they added to it.
Senior Gianna Christiansen played a long ball into the box. Junior Sami Baytosh put the header into the net for her first goal of the season. It put Arizona up 2-0 on the Cougars.
SAMI BAYTOSH HEADER!!
Sami opens the second half with a goal to extend our lead! pic.twitter.com/iG0zL63krN
— Arizona Soccer (@ArizonaSoccer) October 5, 2024
“It was just good to get on the board again,” Baytosh said. “I feel like it gave us a confidence boost like we’re up two to zero basically going into the second half because it was really quick.”
The assist was Christiansen’s first of the year to go with her five goals. She is second on the team with 11 points.
Junior goalkeeper Olivia Ramey had the second-best match of her Arizona career. She faced 11 shots on goal and saved nine of them earlier this season when the team traveled to North Carolina. The Tar Heels took 24 shots in total. The Cougars took 13 shots, putting nine of them on goal. Ramey saved eight of those shots.
BYU’s lone goal came in the 72nd minute. Erin Bailey scored off the assist by Allie Fryer.
Erin puts the Cougs on the board
https://t.co/bCEuC4xKV9 pic.twitter.com/tcdDtHOpsv
— BYU Women’s Soccer (@byusoccer_w) October 5, 2024
“I think the biggest thing for us was just not letting the goal phase us,” Ramey said. “I mean, we knew we still were up one. There were like 15, 20 minutes left, and the momentum was on our side, and we knew we just had to keep it that way. It was gonna be a team effort, and that’s what it was. So we really just didn’t let it get to us, and kept finishing off the game.”
Arizona’s defense also played a role in turning back some dangerous chances. As Ramey stated, the team as a whole rose to the occasion.
“I think Gianna was just all over the pitch,” Moros said. “Trinity (Dorsey) had a very solid game. (Megan) Chelf was very good. Maia (Brown) was strong. (Rikako Hayami) came off the bench, did a very good job for us. (Ella) Hatteberg was a brick wall back there. So, there were a lot of players who had great games—and had to. Shanti (Weddington) put a big defensive effort in off the bench. Marley (Chappel) as well. So a lot of players did a lot of work.”
The Wildcats improved their record to 8-3-2 overall and 3-2-1 in Big 12 play. The wins tie the best record in Moros’ four years. Arizona went 8-7-3 overall in 2022. The conference wins tie the team’s total conference wins last season in the Pac-12 with five matches left to play.
“These seniors were the freshmen when I got here, and so they’ve really invested a lot in the program, and they’ve helped us build and helped each class of freshmen who came in after them get adjusted to our style, get acclimated to the way we train, the way we work, the way we commit to each other,” Moros said. “And they’re very good leaders, and they push themselves. They have big engines, so they work really hard and lead by example…So I think in kind of typical fashion, when you have an older team, a more veteran team, you start to see more consistent performances. And we’ve always had some big wins every year and been able to play with some of the big teams and play good football against them, but we haven’t been able to consistently put those games together. Whereas this year, I think we’re taking it to teams that we would have maybe not been able to keep our highest standard against in previous years. But I think that is a lot of credit to the senior class and our fifth years, as well, and the junior class, which is fairly robust for us, as well, and also good leaders.”
Arizona is now off until Oct. 10 when the Wildcats play UCF in Orlando. They follow that up with a stop in Houston to play the other Cougars on Oct. 13.
Lead photo courtesy of Arizona Athletics