Women’s soccer: Panthers face personal matchups this weekend

Pitt women’s soccer players Ali Matisse and Katie Ruhe want to win every game they play. But… Pitt women’s soccer players Ali Matisse and Katie Ruhe want to win every game they play. But this weekend’s matchups are personal.

On Friday night, the Panthers (2-6-2, 0-1-1) host the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (6-3, 1-1). The game not only gives Pitt an opportunity to pick up its first conference win of the season, but it also presents Matisse with the chance to compete against her former high school teammate, Rutgers sophomore forward Paige Alexander. The two played together for three years at Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School.

“I’m excited to see her more than anything,” said Matisse, who scored her first career goal last Sunday in a 2-2 tie with South Florida. “We were really good friends in high school. It will definitely make the game more exciting.”

In 2009, both Matisse, then a junior in high school, and Alexander, a senior, were first-team All-Mid-Penn Conference selections. Their team won 18 games — a school record until last year — before eventually losing in the second round of the Pennsylvania State Playoffs.

The connection between Pitt and its opponent will change from friendly to familial when the Panthers welcome Seton Hall (6-1-2, 2-0) to Ambrose Urbanic Field on Sunday.

Sophomore Amie Ruhe, Pitt senior Katie Ruhe’s younger sister, starts at midfield for the Pirates. The game marks the first time that the two sisters will take the field in different uniforms. The elder Ruhe said that she expects a battle, and maybe some trash talk.

“We’ll see what happens,” she said. “I’m going to tell the refs beforehand to let the talking go. We don’t mean everything we say to each other.”

The verbal jabs exchanged between the Ruhes might be playful, but the senior said that her team’s need for a win is serious.

The Panthers are practically starving for a win. They have not tasted victory since they defeated Delaware 1-0 on Aug. 28. Since then, Pitt has dropped four games. But Ruhe said that Sunday’s two-goal tie put her team back on the right track.

“We’ve definitely been making progress,” she said. “The past two games that we’ve played have been the best games we’ve played all season. So I’m expecting to keep moving in the same direction.”

Sophomore forward Katie Lippert said that last week’s practices set the tone for the Panthers’ resurgent offense last Sunday.

“Everyone stepped up in practice last week,” said Lippert, who scored the Panthers’ second goal against South Florida. “I think that followed through to this week. We scrimmaged a lot in order to prepare for the game against Rutgers.”

Pitt will face one of the best offensive threats in the country on Friday in Rutgers freshman forward Amy Pietrangelo. In addition to playing for team Canada at the Women’s World Cup this past year, Pietrangelo was nominated for the Canadian U20 Player of the Year award. She has a goal and two assists in nine games this season.

“We definitely have to keep an eye on her,” Pitt head coach Sue-Moy Chin said. “She’s a real threat.”

Before practice on Tuesday, Chin said that her team would focus on improving its own play, rather than changing its scheme, in preparing for the Scarlet Knights. Nonetheless, Chin is making sure her players take note of their opponents’ potentially potent offense. Rutgers averages 1.33 goals per game this season while surrendering only one.

“Their forwards move well up top,” she said. “They do a lot of interchanging runs, and they look for a lot of slip-passes in behind the defense. So we’re going to work to make sure that we don’t get pulled out of position defensively. We want to guard against them getting easy balls behind our defense.”

As far as results go, Chin said the Panthers expect to add to their currently empty wins column.

“We’re looking to get two wins this weekend,” she said. “That’s our focus. It starts with Rutgers on Friday.”