Washington State Soccer: Previewing the Cougars Non-Conference Schedule

We're just over a week away from the start of Washington State soccer, with the Cougars kicking off with an exhibition match against Eastern Washington. To get you ready for the season we'll be taking a look at WSU's 2025 schedule, starting with the non-conference opponents.

The exhibition match against Eastern Washington, scheduled for August 8th, is an interesting way to get the year started. The Eagles were a decent Big Sky side last season, finishing with a 9-5-5 overall record. EWU returns their top scorer from last season, forward Chloe Pattison, which poses an interesting challenge for a team completely rebuilding its offense.

Eastern Washington won't count in the standings, but the first game that will is a big one. Utah State comes to Pullman on August 14th, and the Aggies are coming off a season where they won the Mountain West tournament and took Washington to penalty kicks in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Several of their top players have returned for 2025, so the Cougars will be tested right off the bat.

The Cougars will then hit the road to take on another top Big Sky school in Idaho, who are coming off a 12-5-3 season that saw them finishing second in the conference, before returning home to Pullman for their biggest game of the non conference schedule.

That would be the Georgia Bulldogs. The Bulldogs were one of 10 SEC teams to make the NCAA Tournament last season. The Bulldogs lost a lot of their top starters from the tournament team, but it was a deep squad that succeeded in a tough conference, so this is another tough one for Washington State.

Then it'll be back on the road for the first of three straight games against California teams. The first, on September 4th, is Cal themselves. The Golden Bears are also coming off of a tournament appearance last year. The Bears made the second round before getting knocked out by Arkansas.

The Cougars will then face UC San Diego on September 11th and UC Irvine on September 14th. The Tritons struggled last season, putting up a 3-12-4 overall record, but the Anteaters were decent, posting a 6-7-6.

Washington State will return home on September 18th for a match against North Dakota State. The Bison have a chip on their shoulder, as they were the class of the Summit League for the regular season in 2024, but were upset in the semifinals of the conference tournament, costing the team an NCAA tournament berth. Many of the top players from last year's team are back, and hungry to return to the postseason.

Finally, the non conference portion of the schedule finishes with another top Big Sky team. This time WSU travels to Missoula to take on the Montana Grizzlies, Like North Dakota State last year's Grizzlies were clearly the best team in their conference, but fell short in the conference tournament. Also like the Bison, the Grizzlies have a lot of veterans returning for another run at the national tournament.

The clearest thing to see from this schedule is that its not an easy one. Even when they take on schools from smaller or mid major conferences, they're taking on the best schools in those conferences. That's in addition to schools like Georgia and California, programs with sustained success. The Cougars have potentially set themselves up for a very rough start to the season.

That said, a trial under fire could be a good way to develop this team. The conference schedule is the most important; if the Cougars can win that a rough patch early in the season is negligible. If playing against strong opponents helps Washington State get their offense sorted out, and figure out where their goal scoring is going to come from, it could be worth some growing pains.

That's all for today, we'll wrap up our Washington State soccer preview series by taking a look at their conference opponents tomorrow.