Women’s soccer heads west

In the first meeting between the two schools, FIU takes on Fresno State and Cal Poly in non-conference play

FIU’s women’s soccer team travels west this weekend to take on the Fresno State University Bulldogs (1-4) and the Cal Poly Mustangs (2-4) in a pair of non-conference games. The Golden Panthers will face off with Fresno State at 10 p.m. ET Thursday night before playing Cal Poly on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET.

Head Coach Thomas Chestnutt came to FIU from Fresno State and looks forward to taking on his old school. “It’ll be very interesting for me. It’s a big football weekend for them and this soccer game will be kicking it off. It will be nice to see some of the coaches and some of the players I had the opportunity to coach.”

It will also be a homecoming for FIU forward Claudia Cardenas (Visalia, Calif.) who also happened to be recruited by Fresno State. “It’ll be great to play in front of my family and friends. My parents have not seen my play yet in college and hopefully we’ll be able to come out of there with a win.”

“The players are preparing themselves well mentally for the game,” said Chestnutt. “What’s important for us is the positioning in our conference and these two games are going to be dogfights and prepare us for that. Everything’s starting to come together, the chemistry is good, and we’re just looking for that breakout game which we’re hoping will happen this weekend.”

FIU is coming off of two hard-fought losses against No.4 Florida State and the University of North Florida this past weekend. The Golden Panthers out-shot the Ospreys but were unable to put one in the back of the net as they fell 1-0.

After the two matches on the west coast, the Golden Panthers will have two weeks off before taking on Middle Tennessee at 7 p.m. on September 26^th and then Western Kentucky at 1 p.m. on the 28^th.