WAC Weekly: Winners, losers, improvers and who’s to blame?

A month down on the fall sports Western Athletic Conference calendar, and there have been some good, bad and ugly plays. Over the last month, we’ve had both men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, and men’s and women’s golf. Who’s taking home the first-ever WAC and Wolverine winners, losers, improvers and blame? Let’s get straight to the point below.

Winners

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first — winners! With so many great performances in the first quarter of fall through all sports, this ‘winner’ comes from volleyball. The New Mexico State Aggies team is an easy choice for this first-ever ‘winners’ pick. They’re the only undefeated team in all the four sports listed earlier, and they’ve only dropped two sets in their six wins thus far.

The Aggies are also off to their best start since 2006 where they ended 33-4 overall. NMSU has already one player, junior middle-blocker Julianna Salanoa, take home WAC Player of the Week honors for the week of Sept. 2-8.

A UVU ‘winner’ kicked and defend his way to the spot. Senior defender Aaron Caprio took home WAC Player of the Week honors during the week of Aug. 25-31. Caprio leads the back line for the Wolverines, contributing mightily in the season-opening shutout win.

Losers

As much as there are winners, that means there are just as many losers. The pick for a ‘loser’ goes to none other Chicago State women’s soccer. Normally, when seeing CSU you think of the sorry men’s and women’s basketball programs. This fall, the CSU women’s soccer team is taking a little heat off of Cougar basketball.

The Cougars have started off 0-6 while not having scored a single goal in any game so far. Not only that, but they’re giving up an average of about six goals a game through only six games — yikes.

Improver

There are no such things as Wolverine ‘losers’. So, a Wolverine ‘improver’ is the men’s golf team. The team took dead last out of 18 teams in the opening tournament of the year in Colorado. The Wolverines had just one golfer card under-par in at least one round or more through the whole weekend. Improvers men’s golf will be.

Who’s to Blame?

For blame here, it comes down to two things — tough luck and an off-game. So, this WAC Weekly blame goes to tough luck, namely the injury bug. The injury bug struck UVU women’s soccer on Friday, Sept. 6 in San Jose, Calif. as senior goalkeeper Allie Jara was injured just before extra time.

The Wolverines went on to lose that game, as well as Jara for an extended period of time. The off-game would come next for UVU. The Wolverines lost 5-0 just two days later against Santa Clara University. UVU started true freshman Saydee Bacdad, in a game to forget for the team as a whole.

With much to look forward to throughout WAC fall sports play, comes many more winners, losers, improvers and what blame is afoot. Conference match-ups are just around the corner, full of competitive play with a lot of heart and hustle. We can’t wait to see who comes out on top in each and every fall sport. For coverage and more information on WAC sports teams go here.

Photo by Natasha Colburn