As the CWU women’s club soccer team heads 160 miles east to Eastern Washington University (EWU) over the weekend, the club has the same thing in mind—win.

“In our minds, it’s trying to get the best outcome possible,” junior center midfielder Daisy Merida said. “We always go into any game at any tournament wanting to win.”

CWU will be playing against Washington State University Tri-Cities and EWU. Each team will play each other twice with the top two teams meeting in the final.

“I think just take care of our bodies,” junior striker Claudia Brasino said. “Just be focused, have the team ready, prepared and be motivated.”

With a tight travel budget, the team picks the most deserving players to travel with the team.

“Going in fresh against the [tournament field] I believe we can sweep them pretty well,” coach Eddie Olivera said.

During their fall season, the team lost 4-1 to the University of Washington (UW) a school that has four times as big of a pool to choose from than CWU.

“We think about their division sometimes,” Brasino said.

A couple weekends ago, the team had a much better result in a rematch with UW. They got a 1-1 draw, while not having many substitutes.

This would turn into a big moral victory for the team.

“A lot of the girls were down because they thought they were scared they’d lose by that much again,” Olivera said. “They were playing very well, connecting passes, keeping possession.”

UW also has an advantage being able to practice outdoors year round, unlike CWU. Between the fall and spring soccer season, the team is forced to practice indoors with the snow covering the Alder Recreational Complex.

“Going into Eastern we’re going in to play the same mentality—the same as when we played UW,” Olivera said.

During the winter months the team does gym and indoor soccer training.

“We basically just scrimmaged the whole time,” Brasino said. ”We didn’t really get to do technical footwork.”

A three-month break from outdoor competition could hurt team chemistry on the field, but in this case it did not.

“I think that’s when the chemistry [peaked],” Olivera said.

Merida thought the team started off struggling with team chemistry at the beginning of fall, but by the end of fall the team began to sit their stride.

During fall practices, Olivera had the team work on getting the right touches on passes and finding ways to score. Now they are working on being well-conditioned.

“I expect us to come together and play together,” Merida said. “We know each other much better now so we should be able to play more as a team.”

The team also spends time with each other on the field.

“A lot of the girls hang out outside of soccer which is really cool,” Olivera said. “The men’s team just come and play.”