Volpe's goal gives ASU win over Long Beach State

Sophomore Karin Volpe's team leading sixth goal of the season turned out to be the game winner as the Arizona State women's soccer team defeated Long Beach State 1-0 on Sunday afternoon. With the win, the Sun Devils moved to 6-2-3 and extended their current unbeaten streak to seven games (5-0-2), their longest such streak since 2002. Long Beach State fell to 6-3-2.

The only offense of the game came in the 84th minute when Volpe took a pass from teammate Jill Shoquist, then quickly eluded a defender and fired a shot passed 49er goalkeeper Liz Ramos for the goal. With the goal, Volpe (11 career goals) took sole possession of 10th place on ASU's all-time list.

Combined with its 1-0 win over No. 20 UC Santa Barbara on Friday, ASU scored a pair of wins this weekend over teams ranked ahead of it in the West Region rankings.

"This weekend was really important for us because we were the underdog in both games," said ASU head coach Kevin Boyd. "Both UC Santa Barbara and Long Beach State will challenge for the Big West conference title and so it was good to get both of these wins."

Junior goalkeeper Briana Silvestri made three saves to collect her fifth shutout of the season, tying her for fifth place on ASU's all-time list for most shutouts in a season.

The Sun Devils will take a week off before returning to action on Friday, October 10 when they host Arizona at 7 p.m.

"This off weekend will give us a chance to recover, and get our legs back" said Boyd. "Besides our injuries we have half the team sick right now and so we can use the time to get healthy."