Player of the Week
SMU junior forward Tara Comfort was named Western Athletic Conference Womens Soccer Player of the Week. Comfort is the second-straight Mustang to earn the honor after Kim Harvey was Player of the Week last week.
Comfort, a native of Carrollton, Texas (Newman Smith), earned a total of seven points on three goals and one assist. The junior led SMU to convincing wins over Fresno State, 3-0, and San Jose State, 4-0.
She scored one goal and one assist for three points in SMUs win over Fresno State. Comfort scored two goals in the Mustangs win over San Jose State despite the fact that the match was suspended after 75 minutes due to severe weather. Comfort is second in scoring with four goals and four assists.
Additional nominees included: Kaziah Hill, Boise State; Carmel Hurley, Hawaii and Kelly Potysman, Rice.
WAC Play
After the second week of WAC action, SMU leads the league with four wins. The Mustangs captured home wins against Fresno State and San Jose State establish a 4-0 conference record. Fresno State jumped to second after a 1-1 weekend. The Bulldogs fell to SMU in a shortened match, 3-0 and defeated UTEP, 1-0. Fresno State is tied for second with Rice. The Owls defeated Hawai`i, 3-2.
There are six more WAC matches scheduled for this week. In the lone match on Thursday, Boise State travel to Fresno State. There are three matches on Friday, Oct. 10. Nevada travels to San Jose State in search of its first win of the season. UTEP makes the long trip to Hawai`i, and Rice faces Tulsa in Oklahoma. On Sunday, Nevada remains on the road to take on Fresno State, while SMU puts its four-match winning streak on the line against Hawai`i.
The WAC Against Ranked Opponents
No WAC schools faced a nationally ranked opponent last week. Hawai`i fell to No. 15 California, 4-0, on the road Monday, Oct. 1. This was the last top 25 team to play a WAC member for the season.
For the 2001 season, the WAC was 0-9 against nationally ranked squads. Fresno State ended up 0-2 against top 25 teams, losing 2-1 at Stanford and 2-0 at California. Hawai`i fell 4-1 to St. Marys and 4-0 to California. Nevada dropped a match 3-0 to St. Marys, while SMU was topped by Santa Clara, 5-2, and Stanford, 4-0. San Jose State lost home matches to Santa Clara (8-0) and St. Marys (5-0).
The WAC in the Polls
SMU is still the only WAC team to have made an appearance in the polls. The Mustangs were ranked earlier in the season but fell out of the SoccerBuzz national top 25 a few weeks ago after suffering two road losses, falling 2-5 to No. 7 Santa Clara and 0-4 to No. 4 Stanford. Despite improving to 8-3 overall after a conference victory last week, SMU has not made it back into the polls this week. The Mustangs climbed a spot in the regional rankings to No. 6.
SMU made its highest appearance in the polls on Sept. 10, earning the No. 16 spot in the top 25 and the No. 3 spot in the Central Region.