San Diego, Calif. - San Diego State head women's soccer coach Mike Friesen announced his team's 2019 schedule on Monday. The 19-game slate includes 11 regular-season games that will be played on the SDSU Sports Deck, as well as an exhibition match.
"Overall, we have a schedule that is very challenging," Friesen said, "and those are challenges which will put us in a position to compete at a high level; to try to win a Mountain West championship and get the NCAA Tournament. But we don't want to just show up at the NCAAs, we want to compete. We've had a lot of success scheduling tough nonconference teams, which has served us well when we've got to critical games where it is win or go home and you are up against very good competition."
Six of the team's first eight games are against competition which finished ranked in the top-100 at the end of the 2018 season.
The Aztecs begin the season with five straight at home starting with its exhibition against the Washington State Cougars (#16 in 2018) on Friday, Aug. 16 at 7:00 p.m. The regular season begins six days later against Texas Tech (Aug. 22 - 7:00 p.m.), which finished last season #18, and is followed by matches against LIU-Brooklyn (Aug. 25 - 12:00 p.m.), San Francisco, #79 in 2018, (Aug. 29 - 7:00 p.m.) and concludes when SDSU hosts California (Sept. 1 - 12:00 p.m.), which finished last season at #83.
San Diego State's first game away from home is Sept. 7 at 7:00 p.m. (ET) against the Miami Hurricanes (#93 in 2018) in Miami, Fla. Following its cross-country odyssey, the Aztecs are back home hosting local foe San Diego (Sept. 13 - 7:00 p.m.) before traveling up to Malibu on Sept. 15, to play the Pepperdine Waves, #48 in 2018, at 1:00 p.m. The squads final non-conference opponent is Long Beach State, which ended 2018 at #60, and visits The Mesa on Sept. 22 with kick off scheduled for 6:00 p.m.
"We've always tried to put together a nonconference schedule that is one of the top in the country," Friesen said. "We feel like it's an opportunity to figure out where we need to get better and it puts us in position, RPI wise, to earn an at-large bid, if that is the way things go. Finally, we always want to compete on the highest level, so when we get to the NCAA Tournament, we will have already seen the caliber of team we will be competing against. We want to play the best teams. We are setting a culture of not just competing in the Mountain West, but on a national level. The nonconference schedule also prepares us for conference play, which is entirely different."
Mountain West play begins with a pair of games which will wrap up the month of September. The conference opener is on the road at Wyoming on the Sept. 27, at 4:00 p.m. (MT) and then the Mountain West home opener comes two days later against Colorado State on Sept. 29, at 12:00 p.m.
"The Mountain West schedule is always challenging," Friesen said. "We're in a cycle that for this year and next year, our split weekend will be with Wyoming and Colorado State. The good part of that is we only have to play at 7,000 feet once, but the bad part is the travel between those games."
The Colorado State match starts a three-game homestand. The second game is against UNLV (Oct. 4 - 7:00 p.m.) and the third is against Nevada (Oct. 6 at 12:00 p.m.).
The Aztecs then head out on the road for four straight games in the Mountain Time Zone. The longest stretch of the regular season away from home begins at 2018 Mountain West regular-season champion Boise State (Oct. 11 - 4:00 p.m. MT), and then at Utah State two days later (Oct. 13 - 1:00 p.m. MT). The following weekend finds SDSU in Colorado Springs, Colo., for games at Air Force (Oct. 18 - 6:00 p.m. MT) and at Colorado College (Oct. 20 - 1:00 p.m. MT).
"The challenge of those back-to-back weekends on the road, will be the altitude and the travel between Boise and Logan," Friesen said. "However, a positive of playing in Boise is we will have to opportunity to get a feel for the field and the site. We haven't played there since 2017, so the majority of our players have never competed there, and this will be a chance for them to get a feel for what we will encounter when we head back there in November."
The home portion of the slate wraps up with matches against Fresno State (Oct. 25 - 7:00 p.m.) and 2018 Mountain West Tournament champion San José State (Oct. 27 - 11:30 a.m.). The regular season concludes at New Mexico (Nov. 1 - 7:00 p.m. MT), against the team that knocked the Aztecs out a bid to the conference championship tournament last season.
The Mountain West Championship will be contested Nov. 5-7 in Boise with the winner receiving an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
2019 San Diego State Women's Soccer Schedule
| Aug. 16 | Washington State (Exhibition) | 7:00 p.m. |
| Aug. 22 | Texas Tech | 7:00 p.m. |
| Aug. 25 | LIU Brooklyn | 12:00 p.m. |
| Aug. 29 | San Francisco | 7:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 1 | California | 12:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 7 | at Miami | 7:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 13 | San Diego | 7:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 15 | at Pepperdine | 1:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 22 | Long Beach State | 6:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 27 | at Wyoming* | 4:00 p.m. |
| Sept. 29 | Colorado State* | 12:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 4 | UNLV* | 7:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 6 | Nevada* | 12:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 11 | at Boise State* | 4:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 13 | at Utah State* | 1:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 18 | at Air Force* | 6:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 20 | at Colorado College* | 1:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 25 | Fresno State* | 7:00 p.m. |
| Oct. 27 | San Jose State* | 11:30 a.m. |
| Nov. 1 | at New Mexico | 7:00 p.m. |
| Nov. 5-9 | Mountain West Championship (Boise, Idaho) | TBA |
BOLD - denotes home games played on the SDSU Sports Deck
* - Mountain West games
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