Washington women's soccer team to finish regular season, wait for NCAA call

The regular season ends this weekend at home for the Washington women's soccer team, and on Monday postseason preparations will likely begin when the 64-team NCAA tournament field, expected to include the Huskies, is announced.

First, though, Washington (11-4-3 overall, 3-2-2 Pac-10) must face two top-25 opponents at Husky Soccer Field. Friday night at 7 the Huskies meet third-ranked UCLA (15-2-1, 6-1); on Sunday it's No. 21 USC (12-6, 4-3) at 11 a.m.

Even two losses against ranked teams would likely not bar Washington from the tournament.

The Huskies have played a rugged schedule, facing the nation's top three teams (Stanford, Portland and UCLA), and have appeared in the "also receiving votes" group of every coaches' poll since early September.

"I'm optimistic," coach Lesle Gallimore said of UW's postseason worthiness.

A tournament invitation would be UW's second straight and confirm the view that Washington women's soccer has fully emerged from its Dark Ages phase.

After advancing to the 2004 NCAA Elite Eight, UW's best postseason showing in women's soccer, three straight seasons of unprecedented, lopsided losing followed, starting with an 0-17-3 pratfall in 2005.

"We graduated nine starters and lost two freshmen to injuries," Gallimore said of the 2005 season. "That's 11 scholarship kids — a full starting team. You don't bounce back from that too quickly."

Gallimore, in her 16th season, acknowledges that she was also being outmaneuvered by coaches who secured verbal commitments from prep recruits in their sophomore and junior years. "It was a huge eye-opener," she said. "We jumped into that game."

Restocked, UW reached the second round of last year's tournament and began 2009 with reasonably high expectations. But just four minutes into this season's first match, top left midfielder Kellye Joswick went down with a torn knee ligament.

"We've done very well despite missing her, and we try not to think of the what-ifs, but it really shifted the dynamic of our team," Gallimore said. "Other people had to step up."

That group includes senior forward Veronica Perez, with five goals, and junior forward McKenna Waitley, who leads UW in goals (six), assists (four) and game-winning goals (three).

Notes

• Washington has scored just nine goals in seven Pac-10 matches. "I think we're pretty young in our attack," said Gallimore, who notched her 200th career win last weekend. "Veronica [Perez] is our most veteran player and we've moved her around quite a bit. I think she feels a lot of pressure to carry the load herself and we've tried to take that off her.

"When you have inexperienced finishers and youth up front it can make or break a game. Right now we're sort of attacking by committee. I think we can score goals. We certainly create enough opportunities. But you have to be composed, sharp and have a nose for finishing off a game. That just comes with maturity."

• Kelli Stewart, a sophomore from Kamiak, and senior Nikki Murray (Mount Rainier), each have four goals. Sophomores Alex Webber and Kate Deines (Issaquah), plus Alex Kirk (Edmonds-Woodway), one of six seniors on the squad, each have two goals. Sophomore keeper Kari Davidson has four shutouts.

• The NCAA tournament field will be announced at 5 p.m. Monday on ESPNews.

• When UCLA lost 2-0 at Stanford on Oct. 18, it was the school's first Pac-10 loss since 2006. UCLA has won six straight Pac-10 titles. Minus a Stanford upset this weekend, though, that streak is due to end. Stanford, a 3-0 winner at UW on Oct. 25, is the nation's No. 1 team at 17-0.

• UW has won just one Pac-10 title in Gallimore's tenure, in 2000. She says that team will be recognized with a 10-year anniversary celebration next year and believes UW can some day reclaim that spotlight.

"Our senior class has been through two really rough seasons in a rebuilding period," Gallimore said. "We're getting enough kids on our team now who are geared toward winning. They have a winning attitude; they've won enough that they hunger for more. Sometimes in a program that's just what it takes.

"For a couple of years there, our kids had forgotten how to win and they didn't have that swagger or confidence. We have kids now who are driven to do that. I'm hopeful. I do think there's more [title chances] in our future."

• Maintaining consistency looms as one of UW's biggest challenges this season. "We've had great defensive games and we've had some great attacking moments, but I don't think we've put those elements together at the same time as often as we're capable of doing," Gallimore said. "If there's ever a time for that to start happening, this weekend would be good."

• Gallimore senses she might need to reign in some of her own perfectionist tendencies.

"As a coaching staff we've realized how good we can be, but we almost nitpick it to death," she said. "If everything isn't perfect, we're not satisfied with it. In soccer, you can't be that way because there are a lot of things that are going to go wrong. It's how you react in bad situations.

"We want to get to the point where players just kind of let go, play and not worry about the results. If we let things flow and get really assertive and aggressive in our attack, we can have that free-flowing confidence on both sides of the ball."