SAN DIEGO – After splitting the hardest road trip in the Mountain West, a pair of road games at elevation, the San Diego State women's soccer team returns to the friendly confines of the SDSU Sports Deck for a pair of league matches this weekend against Boise State and Utah State on Friday and Sunday, respectively.
Next Up
San Diego State (3-7-0, 1-1-0 MW) vs. Boise State (7-2-1, 1-0-1 MW)
Friday, Oct. 1 | 7 p.m. (PT) | SDSU Sports Deck | San Diego, Calif,
Mountain West Network / Live Stats
San Diego State (3-7-0, 1-1-0 MW) vs. Utah State (9-1-1, 2-0-0 MW)
Sunday, Oct. 3 | 12 p.m. (PT) | SDSU Sports Deck | San Diego, Calif,
Mountain West Network / Live Stats
Aztec Notes
In his 15th campaign leading the Mountain West's most dominant women's soccer program, head coach Mike Friesen has guided his squad to ten Mountain West championships (five tournament and five regular season), and five NCAA Tournament appearances, each the most among any current league head coach. Now in his 15th season of conference play, Friesen has an 89-28-13 record. His 89 league victories are the most by any head coach in Mountain West history (the inaugural season of the MW was in 1999).
After two league games, the Aztecs are 1-1-0. In head coach Mike Friesen's previous 14 seasons, San Diego State has opened conference action 1-1-0 on six occasions (2007, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2017 & 2019). In half of those seasons (2015, 2017 & 2019) the Aztecs went on to win the Mountain West regular-season title and in 2017 also won the MW Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. In addition, since 2007, San Diego State has started its conference slate 2-0-0 on five occasions, 1-0-1 twice and 0-0-2 once.
The series against Boise State began in 2011 and has the Aztecs owning a 9-6-0 record against the Broncos. In games played on the Sports Deck, SDSU is 3-3-0. The last meeting, in the 2020 season, resulted in a 3-1 Aztecs triumph. Laura Fuentes had the game winning goal, on a PK, and Jessica Sanders added an insurance goal.
Utah State and San Diego State have met nine times since the series began in the 2010 season, and the Aztecs have yet to be defeated by the Aggies, holding a 7-0-2 advantage in the all-time series. In games played on the Sports Deck, San Diego State has posted a 2-0-2 mark, and in the last meeting in San Diego, on Oct. 5, 2018, the sides tied after two overtimes, 2-2.
In 23 Mountain West openers, including the sides 1-0 win at Colorado State (9/24), the Aztecs have a 14-6-3 record, including a 5-4-1 mark in MW season openers on the road. In Coach Friesen's league openers, since he took over the program in 2007, his charges are 11-3-1 overall and 4-2-0 when league play has begun on the road.
Despite posting a 2-6-0 record in the non-conference portion of its 2021 schedule, and now sitting at 3-7-0, the Aztecs slot in at No. 131 in this week's NCAA RPI rankings (Sept. 27). This week's opponents are No. 84 (Boise State) and No. 81 (Utah State) in the rankings
Head coach Mike Friesen's 160 victories (160-101-33) since the start of the 2007 season, the year he took control of the program, are the most by any current coach in the MW and rank second in league history (Jennifer Rockwood, BYU, 190 victories). Colorado College's Geoff Bennett's 146 victories in the last 14 seasons ranks second among current MW head coaches.
San Diego State is picked to finish in second place in the MW coaches' preseason poll. This marks the 11th time in 12 seasons the Aztecs have been picked to finish in either first or second place. The only time SDSU was lower than second place in the preseason poll in the last 12 years was in 2019, a year in which the Aztecs were predicted to finish fourth. That team went 10-9-1, shared the Mountain West regular-season title at 8-2-0, and reached the championship game of the league tournament.
Having won five of the last eight regular-season titles, not including the 2020 season in which the league was divided into two divisions and the Aztecs earned the West Division title, SDSU finds itself not the favorite in the eyes of the conference's head coaches for just the second time in the last nine years.
Now in the midst of the league season, note that the Aztecs have won nine of the last 16 MW trophies (regular season and tournament), all of which have come under the direction of head coach Mike Friesen. In total, the 15th-year head coach has guided San Diego State to ten conference titles, and San Diego State has earned 11 Mountain West titles since the conference's inception in 1999. SDSU was the regular season champions in 1999, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2019. The program was the tournament champion in 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2017, and its five tournament titles are the most among current members of the league and the second best in the league's history (BYU, 7).
When head coach Mike Friesen put together this season's non-conference schedule, he knew it would be challenging, but here is the breakdown after the end of the non-conference slate. The Aztecs eight non-conference opponents owned a 45-17-6 record (.706), three of the eight were ranked in the top-10 last week (UCLA No. 3, Pepperdine No. 6 & Stanford No. 10), three are from what are considered Power-5 conferences, and all but two of the eight opponents finished with a .500 or better record.
-SDSU-
Aztecs Open MW Home Schedule This Weekend
