Women's Soccer Announces 2011 Schedule
June 22, 2011
2011 Oregon State Women's Soccer Schedule 
CORVALLIS, Ore. - The Oregon State women's soccer team begins its road to a third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament when it hosts Florida State on Aug. 19, head coach Linus Rhode announced with the release of the 2011 schedule.
The Beavers will play six teams that finished in the Top 25 of the National Soccer Coaches Association of American (NSCAA) poll last season, including No. 2 Stanford, No. 7 Florida State, No. 8 Portland, No. 15 Washington, No. 19 Santa Clara and No. 22 UCLA. Oregon State finished 17th in the final NSCAA poll.
"This is our most difficult schedule we've had since I've taken over as head coach," Rhode said. "It's great and obviously exciting to play a lot of top-ranked opponents before we even hit conference play. I believe five out of our nine games that we play before conference are against teams that were in postseason play last year. We have some big names like Florida State, Santa Clara and the University of Portland."
Oregon State will hit the road after its season-opener against the Seminoles to play Purdue on Aug. 26 and Butler on Aug. 28 before playing in three tournaments, the University of Oregon Nike Tournament against Santa Clara and New Hampshire, the Nike Portland Invitational against New Mexico and Portland and the Oregon State Nike Invitational at home against Florida International and UC Davis.
"I think we have a team this year that is ready for that kind of a challenge," Rhode added. "It couldn't be a better set-up for going into conference play."
Pac-12 play begins on Sept. 23 when the Beavers host new conference member Colorado before hitting the road for five consecutive matches, including a game against Utah on Oct. 14. Oregon State then concludes its regular season with five straight home games with its finale against Oregon on Nov. 4 before the NCAA Tournament begins on Nov. 11.
"Colorado and Utah will bring more problems for all of the teams in the conference," Rhode said. "They are both very well run programs and it's very difficult to go to those places and play because of a different environment and climate. They are two very well coached teams. It will just make the conference that much more difficult for everybody."
The Beavers are coming off one of their best seasons in school history after winning a school-best 16 games, finishing second in the Pac-10 Conference with a school-record seven conference wins and advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"Our goal is obviously to keep building on what we've done over the last two years," Rhode said. "I know the girls were disappointed where we finished, which is great so there is some fuel for the fire for them to go a little further this year in postseason play. If we are going to do better than what we did last year that means we are going to be Pac-12 champions rather than runner-up. And that means we are going to go further than the Sweet 16 in the playoffs and I know everyone is up to that challenge and wants to achieve that."
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