Big West Conference women’s soccer has been in season for two weeks, and the standings aren’t what anyone would have expected.
Three teams are tied for first place at 3-1. Neither of those teams are Cal State Fullerton or Long Beach State, which were picked to finish in first and second, respectively, in the Big West preseason poll. The 49ers and Titans are currently tied for fifth.
There is still a long way to go in the Big West title race, but parity seems to be the theme early on.
Only two of the conference’s nine teams either won or lost all of their games the first weekend.
UC Riverside opened Big West play with two wins and is now tied for first with a 3-1 conference record. The Highlanders were selected to finish last in the Big West preseason poll, and LBSU head coach Mauricio Ingrassia said they were “capable of winning a couple games.”
That’s basically coach speak for “they aren’t very good, but I can’t say that.” Of course, Ingrassia may disagree with me now that UC Riverside is in a tie for first place. The Highlanders have certainly proven that they’re capable of winning a couple games.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, 2012 Big West tournament champion Cal State Northridge remains the only team to have lost all of its games. The Matadors lost a lot of players from last year’s team, but they were still expected to finish in the middle of the pack in the conference.
If things return to normalcy with CSUN winning more and UC Riverside winning less, the conference will look even more equal as the season goes on.
However, it’s interesting to note that while every Big West team seems to be on the same level overall, it’s quite different on a player-to-player basis. There are clear leaders in most of the conference statistics, most notably Cal Poly’s Elise Krieghoff.
Krieghoff currently leads the nation with 16 goals on the season. The next-closest member in the Big West is Hawaii’s Tiana Fujimoto, who has eight.
Kreighoff also has 12 points in conference play, more than twice as many as UC Irvine’s Zoya Farzaneh, who is second in the category with five.
There may not be parity on an individual level, but that’s only because teams have very different ways of winning. Cal Poly has a star forward in Krieghoff, so it centers its attack around her.
Parity should always be the goal for conferences, as it leads to more exciting title races and gives hope to teams every year.
It appears that this season, there will be a close competition for the four spots in the Big West tournament that determines the conference’s champion.