Vandals Electric Start Spoils New-Look Cougars Season Opener

PULLMAN, Wash. - 102 seconds. That’s all it took for Washington State women’s head soccer coach Chris Citowicki to get his first taste of adversity as stared down a 1-0 deficit to start the season.

Outmatched from the start by the rival Idaho Vandals, senior goalkeeper Ashlyn Dvorak misplayed a cross less than two minutes into action, which led to a tap in goal from Calli Chiarelli. 

The dry summer heat beamed down on a Wazzu side that had eight transfer starters following their new coach from Montana. But Citowicki’s debut continued to go south as Idaho’s Alyssa Hamilton sent in a long looping ball from outside that found her teammate Hallie Prinos-Grumbach for a top left header goal, and just like that, the rout was on.

Wazzu needed to stop the bleeding, but the Vandals struck again at the 9:41 mark. From almost midfield, Prinos-Grumbach sent in a sky ball that evaded all Cougar defenders and found her teammate Hamilton for the header goal, returning the favor after the earlier assist.

Just 10 minutes into the game, the Cougars trailed 3-0 and could not dig themselves out of the massive hole. While they protected their net from that point on, it was way too little, too late as that score remained for the rest of the contest and the Vandals ruined Wednesday’s opener at Lower Soccer Field in dominant fashion.

“We all feel it, there was a fight that was lacking and then it's, ‘how do we address that?’ If this is what it looks like in October, then I will punch myself in the face,” Citowicki joked postgame. “But it won't because I know they’re going to improve, and I know they want to improve.”

Once the game slowed down from the first 10 minutes, Washington State controlled possession for much of the rest of the match, but was not able to string together quality shots like Idaho did. No through balls or long passes connected to set up scoring opportunities, which led to a stagnant offense.

While Wazzu’s defense tightened up in the second half, the initial mistakes from a mostly veteran group were far too costly. Despite the three goals, though, Citowicki kept Dvorak in there and will continue to lean on his experienced goalkeeper. 

“She could have made the same mistakes, she could have gotten into her own head, she could have performed poorly and the decision from the sideline was we were keeping her in there because you have to fight your way through something like this,” Citowicki said.

An opening day loss is as disappointing first impression as there is, especially against Idaho, who is a familiar Big Sky opponent for Citowicki and his Montana transfers. But he kept his message to the group simple in their approach to Saturday's upcoming game against South Florida. 

“Natural response should be pissed off, I don’t want us to play that way anymore, we don’t want to play that way anymore. What are we going to do about it?” Citowicki said. “Saturday now becomes a really cool opportunity to show that we’ve learned a lesson from this.”