It is hardly unusual to find Western Washington on the road to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship in women’s soccer.
What is new this year is that the path leads to Portland.
The Vikings (15-1, 10-0 GNAC), ranked No. 2 in NCAA Division II, can wrap up another conference title with a home win Thursday over Northwest Nazarene — or Saturday’s regular season finale at GNAC newcomer Concordia (11-2-2, 8-1-1) could be much more than just a homecoming of sorts for WWU senior goalkeeper Ashley Haden and a trio of teammates.
“I’m beyond excited,” the Hockinson High School graduate said. “I’ve never played a regular season game that close to home. It’s going to be a really big game. Concordia’s second in the league right now and they’re doing great. It will be their home field and their senior night, but I still feel like we’re going to bring a lot of fans — and having that will help us.”
Also from nearby on the WWU roster are freshman defender Taylor Hallquist, a Columbia River High School graduate, and two Oregonians. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. Saturday at Concordia’s Tuominen Yard field.
After three consecutive GNAC regular season championships and national tournament appearances, including a Final Four run in 2013 and last year’s undefeated regular season, WWU has a completely new back line this season. Becoming a cohesive unit took work and practice and development during the season.
“We’ve definitely worked a lot on our communication and getting on the same page,” said Haden, who garnered second team honors as a junior for the West Region from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, Daktronics and the conference.
Haden is second in the GNAC in save percentage (.872), goals against average (0.42) and shutouts (seven), with Concordia’s Olivia Brock leading all three categories (.917, 0.41, eight). Haden has given up two goals in a game just twice this season. The Vikings are 29-2-4 in Haden’s 36 career starts since she took over in goal as a junior last season. Including reserve duty in her first two seasons, she is 29-3-4 with a 0.36 goals-against average.
“Starting from the forwards back to my defensive line, they make my job easy, but having a whole season under my belt definitely helps with my confidence,” she said.
The Vikings are on a 13-game winning streak. They draw on their experience to maintain focus while the wins accumulate, Haden said, staying confident and not getting frantic when facing adversity. She said that WWU’s challenging non-conference schedule is good preparation for GNAC battles in which “No game is easy” even as the Vikings usually prevail, outscoring conference foes 25-4 so far this season.
“We expect to make the NCAA tournament. We hold ourselves to that standard,” Haden said. WWU coach Travis Connell “holds us that standard, but he doesn’t pressure us. We put it on ourselves. We want to do well. We want to continue and grow and improve, and make the tournament each year. We take it one game at a time. The end result is to make it to the tournament, but we know that each game is a stepping stone to get there.”
After three years being played at the Starfire Complex in Tukwila, he GNAC Championships are Nov. 5 and 7 at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. The winning team claims an automatic bid to nationals.
