Women’s Soccer
The women’s soccer team is having a strong season, as they are in contention for first place in the PacWest Conference. Currently sitting with an 10-3-2 record, the Cougars have a historic 19th consecutive season with 10 or more wins.
The women are riding a seven-game win streak as they prepare for their four consecutive away games in Hawaii.
“We’ve got momentum and we’re playing well, but we know that those Hawaii games will be a challenge for us. We know what we have to work on now,” head coach Jason Surrell said. “This is a business trip, it’s a work trip, so we have to take it one game at a time and go there with that mentality.”
Their plan for success is simple: Avoid getting ahead of themselves and focus on one game at a time.
“It’s going to come down to mental toughness. We need to keep in the back of our minds that we have to win one game at a time,” junior midfielder Stephanie Lossau said. “We have to dial in on each game and do our best. That’s all we can do.”
Lossau scored both goals in APU’s last home game victory against Holy Names on Oct. 15.
The Cougars have won their first two games in Hawaii, and have forced five consecutive shutout games.
Men’s Soccer
The men’s soccer season has had its share of ups and downs for the Cougars, beginning the season 0-4-2. Since then, the Cougars are on a four-game win streak in PacWest conference play.
“We have grown. Every season is a growing process. We look back at the first four games, which all went into double overtime, and we could have won, but we didn’t,” head coach David Blomquist said. “Now we’re taking care of games in regulation time a little bit better.”
Now the team currently stands at 6-5-3, and looks to carry positive momentum through the final stretch of the season.
“All games offer a challenge, especially in this region and this conference, so we expect close and tight games,” Blomquist said. “One area that we continue to strive to get better at is putting away our chances. We create a number of chances every game and you want to have a very high success rate on a number of those, but it’s a very difficult thing to do.”
The Cougars are currently in the middle of a week-long trip in Hawaii, where they will play four games. Even though the team has been doing better in the latter part of the season, they are aware that this will not be an easy task.
“That Hawaii trip will be hard. There are some tough fields to play on. Four games in eight days is hard on the body, so we’re gonna be required to use everybody that we take,” senior midfielder Raul Martinez said. “We have to keep working on the little things, but I think our foundation that we built as a team has great camaraderie and brotherhood. That’s what helped us bounce back, and I think we can take that momentum into Hawaii.”
The men won their first of their four road games against Hawaii Hilo, defeating the Vulcans 3-1. They tied in their second away game against BYU-Hawaii, 1-1 on Oct. 24.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will play next at Hawaii Pacific on Oct. 27, then at Chaminade on Oct. 29, before returning home to play against Point Loma in their season finale on Nov. 5.