Beavers and Ducks square off on the pitch in Eugene

It’s time for the Civil War.

The Oregon State Women’s Soccer team will play University of Oregon Friday in a game that will decide who finishes higher in the Pac-12 conference standings. The Ducks (8-9-2 2-7-1 Pac-12) are coming off of a 1-1 tie with Washington State University, while the Beavers (7-10-2 2-8 Pac-12) are coming off of a 1-0 win at Washington.

“We’re excited,” said head coach Linus Rhode. “It’s the Civil War, everyone is excited to play and go get a win.”

There was high energy with the team before the game, and coaches and players alike have said that the team is very excited for the big rivalry game. Players started off throwing a football around as the last of the team got to the field from classes. But when it was time for practice everyone was quickly ready to play and focused on what they needed to do.

“There isn’t any pressure on us anymore,” said junior goalkeeper Bella Geist. “It’s just going to be us and Oregon battling it out on the field.”

Looking back at last week and anything they needed to work on the team was proud of their performances. They kept Washington State scoreless until the last 15 minutes of the game and then posted a shutout against Washington. Looking forward though they were focused on correcting any mistakes they made to try and put together a good full game against Oregon.

“We lost because we needed to take care of our individual matchups,” Geist said. “I think we did that Sunday against UW and that gave us success.”

Strategy wise for the next game the team is planning on some simple adjustments. Defensively Rhode said the team needed to focus on “dealing with attacking players,” and especially “defending deep.” They had success last week defensively with Geist putting up seven saves during the shutout Sunday. 

“Today we are working on pressing,” said junior defender Kathryn Baker. “We want to get after them and overwhelm them from the start.” 

The team will travel down to Eugene for the 3 p.m. game on Friday looking for a big win to end the season. The game will decide who finishes higher in the conference as University of Oregon is just slightly above Oregon State with an extra tie and one less loss on the conference season.

“Everyone’s so excited,” Baker said, “doesn’t matter what happened before it’s all out for the Civil War.”