The CWU women’s soccer team will take on Western Oregon University (WOU) Thursday, Sept. 27 at home.

The Wildcats are coming off a 0-2 loss to Seattle Pacific University (SPU) on Saturday. CWU sophomore goalkeeper Emily Thomson had four saves for the Wildcats but allowed two goals. Makayla Sonstelie and Kasey Reeve chipped in a goal each for the visiting Wolves.

The Wildcats are coming into Thursday’s matchup with an overall record of 1-4-2, with only two GNAC contests early in the season. They struggled to start the season, not earning a victory in their first five games; three of those played at home. Senior forward Kennedy Anson hopes the team can carry the momentum of a win over Montana State University Billings (MSUB) into the remainder of the season.

“We take it game by game and just want to focus on the little things that we do,” Anson said. “And make sure that we’re focused throughout the whole 90 minutes of the game and don’t go through any bumps.”

Anson addressed the team’s need to focus for the entire 90-minute match, something the team has made a goal for the season. Senior midfielder Bailey Martoncik echoed the team’s desire to play a complete match.

“It’s a goal we keep addressing before each game,” Martoncik said. “We want to keep focusing on it so we can really nail the whole 90 minutes.”

Thursday’s matchup will be the second of a two-game home stand before the Wildcats hit the road for two consecutive away games. Anson put an emphasis on getting points at home while playing in front of a favorable crowd.

“We want to get the three points where we can and Western Oregon is a team we feel like we should take advantage of and beat them,” Anson said.

The Wildcats have not faced off against the Wolves yet in the early season and the two teams only met once in the 2017 season, a 2-0 victory for WOU in Ellensburg. Anson believes the team got in their own way much of last season and hopes this matchup with WOU will yield a different result.

“We got in our heads a lot throughout the whole entire season and we definitely would let that affect us,” Anson said. “We’re just going to focus on the things that we do right and not really worry about who we’re playing, just how we want to play and perform.”

Coach Michael Farrand will utilize his entire squad in the match against WOU and throughout the season. In matches against MSUB and SPU, the Wildcats went deep into their bench playing eight substitutes. According to Farrand, the team’s depth is a strength of this years team.

“Our biggest problem last year was we no depth in our bench,” Farrand said. “When a problem arose or we had an injury we didn’t have a solution for it and that showed throughout the year with all the injuries we had.”