They all took a week off from hogging all the awards, but today they are back. Concordia went 2-0 and shut out two CCAA opponents to gain Team of the Week. Nothing got past Golden Eagle keeper Riley Urquiza and she is the Defender of the Week. Hawai'i Hilo's Teani Arakawa was involved in all three of the Vulcans scores in Hilo's one match last week to claim yet another PacWest award.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Hawai'i Hilo's Teani Arakawa, F-MF, Sr., Makawao, Hawai'i
Teani Arakawa had a foot in all three Vulcan goals during a 3-1 home turf victory over Stanislaus State last Friday. The PacWest Preseason Player of the Year assisted on a UHH score less than three minutes into the match to help her team get on the board, and passed into another goal just after the start of the second half. She added her own score at the 60 minute mark to give the defending PacWest Champs a 3-0 lead. In just three matches this season, Arakawa has three goals and two assists for eight points and 2.67 points per match. Both totals lead the PacWest.
DEFENDER OF THE WEEK: Concordia's Riley Urquiza, GK, So., Huntington Beach, Calif.
Golden Eagle sophomore goalkeeper Riley Urquiza added two more shutouts to her 2023 stat totals as Concordia blanked CS San Bernardino (3-0) and San Francisco State (1-0). Urquiza, who earned her second Defender of the Week award, had three saves against the Coyotes and added four more versus the Gators for a total of seven on the week. In five matches this season, the southern Cal native has given up just one goal and has 14 saves (.933), tops in the conference. Her 0.226 Goals Against Average is also the best in the PacWest so far this year.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Concordia University Irvine Golden Eagles
The PacWest Team of Week is the Concordia Golden Eagles. The 2022 NCAA West Region finalists had clean sheets against CS San Bernardino 3-0 and San Francisco State 1-0, giving CUI a 4-1 record on the season. They have outscored their opponents 11-1. Against the Coyotes, Concordia got goals from Maddie Lauro, Olivia Ocampo and Riley Walkington. In the 1-0 win over SF State, Walkington added an assist on Val Cortez's goal. The Golden Eagles will have one more non-conference match this week against CS East Bay before diving into PacWest play next weekend.
PACWEST NEWS AND NOTES: In the topsy-turvy world of the United Soccer Coaches National Rankings, Point Loma was the only PacWest team last week to be listed, at No. 9. Former No. 1 Western Washington fell out of the Top 25 completely after losing to Concordia, who still didn't crack the list. Another ranking will come out today (Tuesday)...Dominican split a pair of 1-0 matches last week, falling to Sonoma State and defeating CS Monterey Bay. Keeper Riley Buesing had the clean sheet against the Otters with five saves, and also had 56 minutes of shutout work with two saves versus the Seawolves...Biola dropped a pair of heartbreakers to good teams, 3-2 to Chico State and 2-1 to CS Los Angeles...Point Loma split matches in Colorado, topping Metro State-Denver (2-1) and falling to UC Colorado Springs, 2-1....More splitting: Chaminade topped rival HPU 2-0 in a non-conference match and lost to CS Monterey Bay, 2-1. For HPU, Madi DePhillips had nine saves in the loss...Azusa Pacific's Maddie Williams was solid in a win (2-0) over Chico State and a tie (0-0) against CS Los Angeles. She didn't give up a goal on the week and had five total saves...Academy of Art GK Nicole Peoples was busy beyond belief during a 4-0 loss to Cal Poly Humboldt. She had 18 saves in the match, the fifth highest total in PacWest history and the most since 2012...Westmont went scoreless with CS Monterey Bay on Monday, with Maya Pablos saving four shots.
LOOKING AHEAD: There a just a few non-conference matches on the front side of this week, as teams begin to taper for the start of the conference schedule. That non-league slate includes a few matches between PacWest teams, like Dominican vs. Academy of Art and Hawai'i Hilo vs. HPU (Tuesday), and the Vulcans vs. Chaminade (Thursday). It then gets real on Saturday with Westmont traveling to Azusa Pacific to kick off the conference slate at 5 pm, with Point Loma and Concordia squaring off in a huge early season match in Irvine at 6:30 pm.Â
