Dec. 6, 2012
SAN DIEGO - In his sixth season on Montezuma Mesa, San Diego State women's soccer head coach Mike Friesen has been named the NSCAA Pacific Region Coach of the Year. Friesen is just the second coach in program history to garner the honor, joining former SDSU head coach Chuck Clegg who earned Soccer Buzz West Region Coach of the Year accolades in 1998.
It is the second award for Friesen in 2012 as he was honored earlier this season as the Mountain West Coach of the Year for the second time in his career. Friesen and the Aztecs were picked to finish second in the preseason coaches' poll, but he guided SDSU to a perfect 7-0 mark in MW play and its second conference regular-season crown.
Under Friesen's guidance, the Aztecs went 19-1-1 en route to earning a No. 2 seed in the 2012 NCAA Women's Soccer Championship. SDSU then opened tournament play with a 3-0 shutout of Cal State Northridge, before advancing to the Sweet 16 for just the second time in program history when the Aztecs earned a 2-1 victory over California in the second round.
San Diego State set a school season record for wins (22), fewest losses (two) and highest winning percentage (89.6). The only blemishes for the Aztecs in their 21-2-1 season were to teams that finished in the top 20 of the final NSCAA poll - losses to No. 3 Stanford and sixth-ranked UCLA and a tie with No. 20 Santa Clara. As a team, SDSU finished 11th in the nation in goals-against average (0.61) and tied for 16th in the country in shutout percentage (0.54).
Friesen also coached several student-athletes to a number of accolades in 2012. The team had a league-best six all-Mountain West honorees, highlighted by Megan Jurado and Haley Palmer being named MW Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively. Jurado, meanwhile, became just the second Aztec women's soccer player to garner NSCAA All-America honors as she was named a second-team honoree.
The eight region coaches of the year now advance to the national ballot. The NSCAA National Coach of the Year will be announced in mid-January at the 2013 Convention in Indianapolis.