Pac-12 Men's Soccer Weekly Rundown - Oct. 12, 2022

Schedule | Standings | Pac-12 Statistics | NCAA Statistics | NCAA RPI | Pac-12 Record Book

Week 8 Fixtures

• All six Pac-12 Men's Soccer programs will step out of league play for non-conference matches this Friday and Saturday.
• No. 1 Washington (11-0-1, 4-0-0) will put its 22-game regular season non-conference unbeaten streak (21-0-1 dating to Sept. 2019) on the line Friday against Gonzaga. That match will be broadcast by Pac-12 Network at 4:00 p.m. PT.
• Friday night will also see Oregon State (4-3-3, 1-1-2) host No. 6 Portland and UCLA visit LMU.
• On Saturday, No. 9 Stanford (6-1-4, 1-1-3) will look to stay undefeated in non-league action and avenge last season's 1-0 double-overtime defeat when it travels to Saint Mary's, while California (3-4-4, 1-3-1) will host San Francisco and San Diego State (4-6-2, 1-3-1) derbies with San Diego.

Week 7 Results

• Near the midpoint of the Conference season, preseason co-favorite Washington has seized control of the Pac-12 title race with 12 points, five clear of second place UCLA. The Huskies got there with consecutive shutouts of then-No. 5 Stanford (3-0) and California (1-0) last week.
• Washington is now unbeaten through 12 matches for the second consecutive season and the fifth time in program history (1973, 1984, 2013, 2021).
• The Cardinal (2-2) and Golden Bears (1-1) both managed draws at Oregon State to salvage a point from their Pacific Northwest swing.
• UCLA earned three points with a 2-0 blanking of San Diego State to hold steady in second place in the table.

National Rankings & NCAA RPI

• Washington remained the nation's No. 1 team in the latest United Soccer Coaches Top 25 for a second straight week, with Stanford hanging inside the top 10 at No. 9 and UCLA receiving votes.
• It marks the fourth time in program history the Huskies have held the No. 1 spot in the United Soccer Coaches poll for multiple weeks (1998, 2014, 2019), and the first multi-week streak for a Pac-12 program since UW's stretch of three weeks in 2019 (Oct. 22-Nov. 5).
• The Huskies have now made 40 consecutive top-10 poll appearances, a streak dating to Sept. 24, 2019.
• The NCAA RPI rankings debuted this week with the Pac-12 rated as the nation's second-best league trailing only the 12-team ACC.
• Washington, which owns the nation's best overall record and is one of six remaining unbeaten Division I teams, checked in at No. 5 in the first ranking, followed by No. 13 Stanford, No. 43 UCLA, No. 51 Oregon State, No. 56 San Diego State and No. 79 California. 
• The Pac-12 is the only league to have all of its programs ranked inside the NCAA RPI Top 80.

In the Non-Conference

• Unbeaten in its last 11 non-league contests (10-0-1), the Pac-12's non-conference record currently sits at 24-8-7, for a .705 non-conference win percentage that leads all NCAA Division I leagues (ACC .700). The Conference has eight non-league matchups remaining this season, six of which will be played this week.
• The 24-8-7 mark includes an 8-2-3 record against leagues based in the eastern half of the country, 3-1-3 against teams from the ACC, Big East and Big Ten.

Top Performers

• The Pac-12 secured its sixth National Player of the Week recognition so far this season as Lucas Meek was honored for the second time in the past three weeks, this time by College Soccer News.
• With his scoring outburst so far this season (9g/7a/25p), Meek has climbed into the Pac-12 career records charts, currently ranking ninth in points (70) and tied for 10th in goals (25).
• UW teammate Gio Miglietti, who netted the match-deciding goal in the 1-0 victory over Cal, was named to the Top Drawer Soccer National Team of the Week.
• Washington goalkeeper Sam Fowler has climbed into the Pac-12 career shutouts top 5, currently in a three-way tie for fourth with 24 clean sheets. However, it was teammate Jadon Bowton who earned his first collegiate victories and shutouts in his first two career starts with five combined saves in last week's wins over Stanford and California.
• Powered by Meek and three other double-digit point producers, Washington's potent attack litters the NCAA Statistics leaderboard. The Huskies are tied for the national lead in goal differential (+27) and rank top 5 in total goals (32, T-3rd), total assists (38, 4th) and total points (102, 4th). Defensively, UW's five goals allowed and 0.417 goals-against average is tied for the second-stingiest in the country.
• UCLA goalkeeper Nate Crockford collected his league-leading fifth shutout of the season with five saves in the Bruins' 2-0 clean sheet over SDSU.  

National Teams/Players of Week

College Soccer News National Teams of the Week
Aug. 29 - Christian Soto, Washington
Sept. 5 - Riley Ferch, UCLA; Ilijah Paul, Washington
Sept. 12 - Elias Katsaros, San Diego State
Sept. 19 - Tommy Silva, UCLA
Sept. 26 - Javier Armas, Oregon State (POTW), Keegan Hughes, Stanford
Oct. 3 - Will Reilly, Stanford
Oct. 10 - Lucas Meek, Washington (POTW)

Top Drawer Soccer National Team of the Week
Aug. 30 - Tommy Silva, UCLA
Sept. 6 - Riley Ferch, UCLA; Ilijah Paul, Washington (POTW)
Sept. 13 - Elias Katsaros, San Diego State
Sept. 27 - Keegan Hughes, Stanford; Lucas Meek, Washington (POTW)
Oct. 4 - Will Reilly, Stanford; Nicholas Scardina, Washington
Oct. 11 - Gio Miglietti, Washington

United Soccer Coaches National Player of the Week
Sept. 7 - Ilijah Paul, Washington
Sept. 14 - Elias Katsaros, San Diego State

Notes and Nuggets

• The Pac-12 sent three teams - Oregon State, Washington, UCLA - to the 2021 NCAA Tournament, marking the sixth consecutive year and eighth time in the past nine seasons the league advanced at least three teams to the postseason.
• The nation’s top RPI conference in 2021 also had the nation’s top two teams in the RPI (#1 Washington, #2 Oregon State) and the top two seeds in the NCAA Tournament (#1 Oregon State, #2 Washington). It was the second time in Conference history the Pac-12 had the NCAA Tournament's top two overall national seeds along with 2013 (#1 UCLA, #2 California). The Pac-12 and ACC (nine times since seeding began in 1994) are the only leagues to have the top two overall national seeds.
• Over the past nine years, Pac-12 men's soccer has earned 31 out of a possible 54 NCAA Tournament bids across its six members, a 57 percent success rate bettered only by the 12-team ACC (65%, 70-108).
• The six-team Pac-12 has had a College Cup representative in six of the last eight seasons (UCLA 2014; Stanford 2015-17, 2019; Washington 2021). Only the 12-team ACC has had more total appearances (12) than the Pac-12's six over that span.
• The Pac-12 boasts two of the top seven (Jeremy Gunn, Jamie Clark) winningest active coaches by percentage in NCAA Division I, while a third is a two-time Pac-12 Coach of the Year (Terry Boss).
• The Pac-12 has produced three of the last eight MAC Hermann Trophy winners - Oregon State’s Gloire Amanda (2020), Stanford’s Jordan Morris (2015) and UCLA’s Leo Stolz (2014) - as well as six finalists in the past nine years (2021 Dylan Teves, WASH; 2017 Tomas Hilliard-Arce, STAN; 2013 Leo Stolz, UCLA).
• The Pac-12 has produced 20 First Team All-Americans in the nine seasons since 2013 after amassing only 15 from 2000-2012.
• Since expanding beyond two rounds in 2014, 72 Pac-12 student-athletes have been selected in the MLS SuperDraft, including four years of double-digit selections (2014, 2015, 2019, 2022).