SAN DIEGO – San Diego State women’s soccer midfielder KK Chowana-Bandhu was named the Pac-12 Newcomer of the Week, the league announced Tuesday afternoon.
Chowana-Bandhu started both matches for SDSU (6-2-1) in a 2-0 week for the Aztecs, scoring a goal in each and playing a total of 132 minutes. Between the two matches, she took ten shots with six on goal.
In Thursday’s win over Pepperdine, the native of Oak Park, California, attempted seven shots with five on goal, matching the Waves’ total of seven shots and surpassing Pepperdine’s two on goal. In the 51st minute, Victoria Miller passed to Alexis Leath, who ran up field and passed to Chowana-Bandhu in the box. She beat her defender and the keeper for the goal. Chowana-Bandhu took three more shots on Sunday against Northern Colorado. She scored a spectacular goal in the 34th minute when she took a pass from Karoline Lundstrom and dribbled past her defender and used her left leg to kick the ball across into the right side of the goal.
She also scored the game-winning goal in the Aztecs’ previous match at Utah Valley. Against Northern Colorado, Chowana-Bandhu became the first Aztec true freshman to score in three consecutive matches since Rachelle Elve had four goals in three matches from October 18-25, 2019.
The freshman is the second Aztec to win a weekly award this season following Kailey Carlen’s Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week award on August 18, for her four-save shutout in the season-opening win at UC San Diego. Last season, SDSU won four conference weekly awards.
The Aztecs will open Pac-12 play with a home match against Boise State on Thursday, October 1, at 7 p.m. Admission to all home matches is free and all remaining matches will be broadcast on the Pac-12 YouTube page.