In what has been a complete, 180 degree turn from last season, the CSUN women’s soccer team is playing for a chance to earn a berth into the 2024 Big West Women’s Soccer Championships with one game left in the regular season.
The Matadors will travel to UC Davis on Halloween to conclude their regular season.
This time last year, the Matadors were going into their final game with only one win and sitting at the bottom of the conference table.
As of Oct. 29, the Matadors sit at No. 7 in the Big West conference with 12 points and the Aggies are entrenched in second place with 17 points. UC Davis has already clinched a spot in the postseason conference tournament regardless of the result from the season finale. The same could not be said for CSUN as only the top six teams in the conference make the tournament.
CSUN head coach Gina Brewer told the Daily Sundial that she feels like the confidence from her team has skyrocketed as the season has progressed.
“Everyone, the coaches and players feel like we’re peaking at the right time. They are learning and coming together,” Brewer said. “It’s just been fun, it’s been fun and it’s been enjoyable. The players are really bought into everything we’ve been coaching them and teaching them.”
It has been refreshing to see the Matadors’ program become rejuvenated once again after a few down years after the COVID-19 pandemic, which included seven wins in three years prior to this season.
With the Matadors racking up a 2-7-1 non-conference record, they proved that they could compete against teams similar or better to them. The Matadors used their quality non-conference schedule to prepare themselves for the Big West portion of the schedule.
Brewer has successfully navigated the Matadors to a 3-3-3 conference record and has set them up with a chance to finish with a positive conference record for the first time since 2019.
“It’s one of things where our team has been improving throughout the season,” Brewer said. “We’ve been talking about how we’re bummed, how it’s coming close to an end, hopefully we keep going on but we wish that it was the beginning of the season cause we feel like we’ve improved so much and we have so much more growth to go.”
The Matadors need to finish with a win over the Aggies on Thursday, otherwise they will not be heading into the Big West Championships. That’s easier said than done for CSUN as UC Davis has not lost since Sept. 29 and has recents wins over UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly.
“Davis is challenging, they are a good opponent, but I think the players have built confidence and belief in themselves,” Brewer added.
Things get tricky for Brewer’s squad despite being only one point outside of the top six with UC Irvine sitting at No. 6 with 13 points. The Anteaters own the head-to-head tiebreaker over CSUN with their 2-1 win on Sept. 29.
CSUN will also need a bit of outside help if they do pick up the win in Davis. If the Matadors win on Thursday, they will need either one of Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Bakersfield, or UC Irvine to lose outright.
CSUB and CSUF play each other on Thursday and if either team pulls out a win and the Matadors win, CSUN will slide into the No. 6 spot with 15 points. The loser of Thursday’s match at Fullerton would sit in behind them with 14 points.
Regardless of how Thursday night goes, Brewer has brought the juice back to the program and has them trending in the right direction heading into her first full offseason as the head of the program.
