#15 Cougar Soccer Welcomes Buffs for Thursday Showdown
#15 WASHINGTON STATE (7-1-1)
vs COLORADO (6-2-2)
Thursday, Sept. 29 at 7 p.m.
Pullman, Wash. | Lower Soccer Field
Watch | Pac-12 Network
Live Stats | StatBroadcast
OPENING XI
I. #15 WSU hosts CU for its conference home opener Thursday at 7 p.m....the Cougs have won 3-straight against the Buffs, dating back to 2019
II. Wazzu and Colorado last met Oct. 2021 in Boulder...the Cougs won 2-0 courtesy of goals from Elyse Bennett and then-sophomore Alyssa Gray
III. With 88 career wins, Coach Todd Shulenberger is tied for the all-time coaching wins record at WSU...the next victory will secure him as the Cougs' winningest coach in program history with 89 victories
IV. WSU has won 7-straight matches for the first time since starting the 2018 season with 10-straight wins...that team advanced to the NCAA Tournament Second Round
V. Mykiaa Minniss started her 82nd career match Friday at Oregon State, securing her position at 5th all-time in career matches started at WSU
VI. Margie Detrizio scored her team-best 7th goal of the season, 9/18 at SMC...Detrizio leads the team with 18 points and is tied for 4th-most goals in the Pac-12
VII. Sydney Studer scored her third goal of the season, Friday at OSU...marking her 4th career game-winner and her fifth goal as a Coug
VIII. Sophomore goalkeeper Nadia Cooper picked up her 17th career win Friday at OSU, moving her one win shy of a tie for 6th on WSU's all-time GK wins list
IX. The Cougs are outshooting opponents 198-55, averaging of 22.0 shots per game
X. Detrizio leads the Pac-12 in shots on frame (2.67), which is 4th nationally
XI. WSU is 3-3-1 in conference home openers since Shulenberger arrived in 2015
COUGARS VS BUFFALOES
Washington State hosts its first home conference match of the season, Thursday at 7 p.m., welcoming the Colorado Buffaloes to Lower Soccer Field. WSU holds a 8-4-0 advantage in the series history. The programs last met Oct. 3, 2021 in Boulder when the Cougs came away victorious, 2-0, thanks to goals from Elyse Bennett and then-sophomore Alyssa Gray. Since arriving on the Palouse, Coach Todd Shulenberger is 4-3-0 against the Buffs, and the Cougs have won 3-straight against CU, dating back to 2019.
SHULENBERGER SET TO BREAK ALL-TIME WINS RECORD
In his eighth season, Shulenberger enters this weekend with 88 career wins, tied for the all-time wins record held by former coach Matt Potter. Shulenberger will break the record with his next victory and cement himself as the winningest coach in WSU history. Shulenberger also holds the second-best win percentage in program history. In his career, he has a .653 win percentage.
NATIONAL RANKING RETURNS
For the first time since preseason, the Cougars are ranked in the national coaches poll published by United Soccer Coaches. The Cougs are ranked No. 15 in the country entering this weekend, after starting the season #20 in the USC Coaches' Preseason Poll. WSU is one of three nationally-ranked Pac-12 programs, between No. 1 UCLA and No. 20 Southern Cal. Washington and Stanford are also receiving votes in the national poll. In the Coaches' Pacific Region, Wazzu is second, behind only UCLA. In the most recent RPI rankings put out by the NCAA, WSU is No. 25 with three past or upcoming opponents in the top 25 and an additional three upcoming Pac-12 opponents in the RPI top-50.
OFFENSIVE FIREPOWER CARRYING COUGS
So far this season, Wazzu has scored 22 goals (2.44 per game) from 11 different Cougars, led by Margie Detrizio with seven goals. The Cougs are outshooting opponents 198-55 through nine matches and the average of 22.0 shots per game is tied for third nationally and second only to Stanford in the Pac-12. WSU is putting shots on frame at a 39% clip (77-of-198) and have limited opponents to just 24 total shots on target.
PAC-12 OPENERS
With the Pac-12 schedule beginning, the Cougs won their conference opener for the second year in a row. Wazzu has not lost a Pac-12 opener since 2017, a 2-1 loss at the hands of No. 2 Stanford. Since beginning his tenure at WSU, Coach Shulenberger holds a 4-2-1 record in Pac-12 openers, and a 3-3-1 in the first home Pac-12 game of the season.
SEVEN-STRAIGHT WINS STREAK
Since beginning the season 0-1-1, the Cougars have won 7-straight matches, dating back to the win over Eastern Washington, Aug. 28. Since then, the Cougars have scored 22 goals (3.14 per match) from 11 different goal-scorers, outscoring opponents 21-6 over the month-long win streak. The 7-game streak marks the longest winning streak since the 2018 Cougar side won the first 10 games of the season, finishing the year in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.
DETRIZIO DOMINATION
Margie Detrizio leads the Cougs this season with 18 points. She is the first Coug with a 6-game point streak since WSU Hall of Famer Kiersten Dallstream tallied points in 6-straight games in fall 2009. Twice this season, Detrizio has scored multi-goal games, becoming just the sixth Cougar in program history with three multi-goal matches in their career, and the first since Carly Dobratz from 2006-09. Detrizio has a knack for finding the frame, as the Pac-12's leader in shots on goal with 2.67 per game, which ranks fourth nationally. She is currently tied for 4th in the Pac-12 in goals scored and 20th in the country. The Chandler, Ariz., native is also leading the conference with 4.55 shots per game and ranks 6th nationally.
CAREER COUG MYKIAA MINNISS
With her 82nd career start Friday at Oregon State, fifth-year senior Mykiaa Minniss solidified her position at 5th all-time in WSU career matches started, excluding goalkeepers. Minniss has started every single match of her Cougar career. If Minniss starts all the regular-season matches this year, she would finish as WSU's all-time career starts leader with 92, besting former teammate Sydney Pulver, who finished her career with 91 starts in Crimson & Gray.
COOPER RE-WRITING WSU RECORD BOOK
Sophomore goalkeeper Nadia Cooper is no stranger to re-writing the WSU record book, this season setting her sights on the career goalkeeping lists. With the Cougs' win at Oregon State, Cooper earned her 17th career win, secured her spot at 8th all-time in WSU career wins, and moved one win shy of a tie for 6th-most GK wins in program history. Cooper also picked up her third complete cleansheet of the season Friday in Corvallis, earning her 10th-career shutout and a tie for 8th on WSU's all-time goalkeeper shutout list. Cooper has spent all but 15 minutes of the 2022 season in goal, bringing her career total to 2,253 minutes in goal, 10th-most in program history.
HOME SWEET HOME
Lower Soccer Field has become something of a fan-fortress for the Cougs. In 2021, the team drew an average of 1,238 fans per match, the highest season average in program history. This season's home opener against Portland drew the fourth-largest crowd in program history with 2,408 fans in attendance. This season, Wazzu is averaging 1,359 fans per game through five matches, good for 12th in the country.
LYNCH BACK WITH A BANG
Senior forward Grayson Lynch hopes to continue a strong run of form from last season. She notched her third goal of the 2022 campaign, Sunday, Sept. 11 versus Cal Poly, scoring a golazo from the outside of the penalty area, a nearly identical strike to her previous goal against Denver in the game before. Lynch became the 22nd Cougar in program history with a 3-game goal streak.
SISTER DUOS POWERING NCAA SOCCER
When junior Jenna Studer transferred to Pullman, she joined her sister and fifth-year senior Sydney on the Cougar roster. The duo are one of 50 sets of sisters playing on the same team in Division-I soccer this season. The Cougs also have junior Marin Whieldon with older sister Shayna serving as the team's coordinator of operations. Wazzu is one of just 10 programs in the country with two sister pairings and the only known D-I program with a staff-athlete sister combination.
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