As the spring season is near the end, the WSU soccer team will face a proven but familiar foe Saturday on the pitch. The Cougars will travel to Beaverton, Ore., to face the Portland Pilots.

The Cougars look to rebound from last weekend’s defeat by the WSU men’s club team, in which the women were shutout 3-0. The loss came a year after the women’s team lost 6-1 to the men.

“What we carry into this weekend from last weekend is our style is working,” Head Coach Steve Nugent said. “Our style is available to us based on our technical abilities, our physical abilities.”

Although in a losing effort, Nugent said the performance against the men’s club team was his team’s best of the spring season.

Defensively the Cougars lost a couple of seniors to graduation and are banking on their young players to fill those roles.

“It’s a growing period, but we’re going to get there,” junior defender Jamie Schnieders said of the defense. “At this point we are already starting to see huge improvement.”

Last season Portland finished with a 17-3-1 record as the No. 11 ranked team in Division I play. Their season ended against Illinois in an overtime loss, which is a result Washington State is all too familiar with.  

“We’re excited because this will be one of our better opponents this spring, and it’s going to be really good for us to play someone of that caliber,” Schnieders said.

In the last meeting between the two teams, the Pilots got the best of the Cougars in the first round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament 6-5 by way of penalty kicks.

“They’re a great team, fantastic program, and I want to win,” junior midfielder Nicole Setterlund said. “We’ve lost to them the last two times we’ve played them in my career, and it’s time.”