Courtesy Photo by UW Athletics
LARAMIE, Wy — The Wyoming Cowgirls soccer team has not played a game at home since their August 30th victory against South Dakota, but their six-game-long road trip has proven to be no issue, with the team winning five of the games.
After over a month of exclusively road games, the Cowgirls will return to Madrid Sports Complex on October 7th to take on San Jose State, hoping to continue their hot streak deep into the Mountain West conference slate.
“Momentum is so important,” said head coach Josh Purdum in an interview with Wyoming Athletics. “We tried to schedule a non-conference where there’s balance between winning games and challenging games. We went above and beyond in non-conference, and we’ve carried that into conference.”
The Cowgirls, who were “creating a lot of confidence” in their performances on the road, just finished up what will go in the record books as the best road stretch and start to a season in program history at 8–3.
For a team that’s won the Mountain West title twice in the past eight years, this is a very impressive start.
Within the six-game road trip, the Cowgirls tallied non-conference wins over Gonzaga, Eastern Washington, Montana, and Colorado State in the Border War, and a conference win over Nevada preceding their most recent loss to UC Davis on October 2nd.
Leading the way for the team this season is a combination of veterans and younger talent.
The top three goal scorers for the Cowgirls this year are Alyssa Glover, Maddie Burr and Isabel Vasco.
Glover is a fifth-year senior, closing in on the all-time scoring mark for the program, while Burr is a junior, starting for the third year in a row.
Vasco is a first-year freshman, who has already proved to be of great value for this talented Cowgirls squad.
On the defensive side, Haley Bartel, a fourth-year starter, has been an absolute stalwart in goal all season and a huge reason for the team’s success.
On September 28th, Bartel won her third MW Defensive Player of the Week Award for the season after shutting out Nevada in a 2–0 victory, the sixth shutout of the season for Bartel, and the 24th of her career — five more than number achieved by second place.
The Cowgirls’ next challenge against San Jose State on Wednesday will be their first home game in 38 days.
San Jose State, so far, has struggled this season at 1–6–2 in non-conference, and 0–2 in conference games.
The Cowgirls hope to put on a rock-solid performance for their eighth match in a row, especially going into a tougher matchup on October 11th — an on-the-road game in Las Vegas against UNLV.
After the UNLV game, only six conference games, four at home and two on the road, remain on the schedule for the Cowgirls before the conference tournament.
The top four teams in the conference qualify for the Mountain West Conference Championships which start on November 11th, but with the way the season has begun, Coach Purdum and company are in a prime position to compete come November.
