SAN DIEGO – Following one of the toughest non-conference schedules in program history, San Diego State women's soccer team's non-conference opponents have the seventh best win-loss record in the nation, the Aztecs embark on the Mountain West portion of its schedule this weekend with games at Colorado State and Wyoming.
Next Up
San Diego State (2-6-0) at Colorado State (1-2-2)
Friday, Sept. 24 | 3 p.m. (PT) | CSU Soccer Field | Fort Collins, Colo.
Mountain West Network / Live Stats
San Diego State (2-6-0) at Wyoming (4-3-1)
Sunday, Sept. 26 | 12 p.m. (PT) | Madrid Sports Complex | Laramie, Wyo.
Mountain West Network / Live Stats
Aztec Notes
After giving the No. 3 UCLA Bruins all they could handle in a 0-2 defeat in its non-conference finale, the San Diego State women's soccer team turns its focus to its Mountain West slate with a pair of games this weekend at Colorado State (9/24) and at Wyoming (9/26).
In its 22 previous Mountain West openers the Aztecs have a 13-6-3 record, including a 4-4-1 mark in MW season openers on the road. In Coach Friesen's league openers, since he took over the program in 2007, his charges are 10-3-1 overall and 3-2-0 when league play has begun on the road.
The series against Colorado State began in 2013 and has the Aztecs owning a 6-0-1 record against the Rams. In games played in Fort Collins, SDSU is 2-0-1. The last meeting at CSU, in the 2018 season, resulted in a 0-0 tie.
Wyoming and San Diego State have met 24 times since the series began in the 1999 season with SDSU holding a 17-5-2 advantage in the all-time series. In games played in Laramie, the Aztecs have posted a 5-4-2 mark, but in its last four games on the Cowgirls field is 1-2-1, including a 2-3 defeat in the last matchup, in the 2019 campaign.
Despite posting a 2-6-0 record in the non-conference portion of its 2021 schedule, the Aztecs rank No. 130 in the NCAA's initial RPI rankings of the season (Sept. 20). This week's opponents are No. 246 (Colorado State) and No. 256 (Wyoming) in the rankings
Head coach Mike Friesen's 160 victories (160-99-33) since the start of the 2007 season, the year he took control of the program, are the most by any current coach in the MW and rank second in league history (Jennifer Rockwood, BYU, 190 victories). Colorado College's Geoff Bennett's 146 victories in the last 14 seasons ranks second among current MW head coaches.
San Diego State is picked to finish in second place in the MW coaches' preseason poll. This marks the 11th time in 12 seasons the Aztecs have been picked to finish in either first or second place. The only time SDSU was lower than second place in the preseason poll in the last 12 years was in 2019, a year in which the Aztecs were predicted to finish fourth. That team went 10-9-1, shared the Mountain West regular-season title at 8-2-0, and reached the championship game of the league tournament.
Having won five of the last eight regular-season titles, not including the 2020 season in which the league was divided into two divisions and the Aztecs earned the West Division title, SDSU finds itself not the favorite in the eyes of the conference's head coaches for just the second time in the last nine years.
With the start of the league season, note that the Aztecs have won nine of the last 16 MW trophies (regular season and tournament), all of which have come under the direction of head coach Mike Friesen. In total, the 15th-year head coach has guided San Diego State to ten conference titles, and San Diego State has earned 11 Mountain West titles since the conference's inception in 1999. SDSU was the regular season champions in 1999, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2019. The program was the tournament champion in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017, and its five tournament titles are the most among current members of the league and the second best in the league's history (BYU, 7).
When head coach Mike Friesen put together this season's non-conference schedule, he knew it would be challenging, but here is the breakdown after the end of the non-conference slate. The Aztecs eight non-conference opponents own a 45-17-6 record (.706), the seventh best opponent win-loss record in the nation (the next closest MW team is Fresno State's opponents at No. 55 and no other MW team's opponents rank in the top-100), three of the eight are currently ranked in the top-10 (UCLA No. 3, Pepperdine No. 6 & Stanford No. 10), three are from what are considered Power-5 conferences, and all but two of the eight opponents have a .500 or better record.
With its 3-0 decision at San Diego (9/10), San Diego State snapped a five-game slide, the longest winless streak for the program since head coach Mike Friesen took control of the program in 2007, covering 292 games. In the program's 33 years of existence (632 games played entering this weekend's match), the longest winless streak is a six-games in the 2000 campaign.
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