How do you top the greatest season in program history?
Well, if you’re the No. 1-ranked Washington men’s soccer team, you start the 2022 season with a 12-0-1 record, including a 4-0 start in Pac-12 play and an eight-game winning streak while drawing sold-out crowds to an ever-increasing fan base.
And you dominate the past two months — beginning with a 3-0 shutout in the Huskies’ opener Aug. 25 and a 3-0 victory in the last outing Friday — with a blistering and diversified attack featuring a trio of threats that ranks among the country’s highest-scoring offenses and a retooled defense that’s overcome the loss of its injured goalkeeper and allowed just five goals, tied for the fewest nationally.
“We’re creating a lot of chances and scoring a lot of goals,” coach Jamie Clark said when asked about UW’s plus-30 goal differential that’s the best in the NCAA. “That’s a hallmark of how we play. We don’t slow the game down. We play an up-tempo variety and it ends up being a lot of opportunities and chances when the opposition allows it.”
What the 45-year-old Clark is hesitant to admit is the Huskies may be better than any team he’s had during his 12-year tenure, which is saying a lot, considering Washington advanced to its first College Cup and lost 2-0 to Clemson in the national championship game in December.
The term “powerhouse” gets bandied about far too often in sports, but how else to describe a UW team that’s made six straight trips to the NCAAs, including two Elite Eight appearances and a trip to the finals in the past three years?
More than halfway through the regular season, it feels like a foregone conclusion the Huskies will make another run at a championship, but Clark understands there’s no skipping steps on the road to a title.
“Shared experiences are powerful, and our team has now had that,” said Clark, who agreed to a contract extension in January that will keep him at UW through 2027. “I think that’s why teams return. We talk about belief, but it’s belief because you had the experience of doing it. So that cements the belief. We have done it. We have been there. You think it’s now a realistic and achievable goal.”
So can the Huskies win it all this year?
“Who knows?” Clark said. “There’s 30 teams every year who have a good chance of getting there and four end up getting there. As soon as you hit the round of 32, it seems like a coin flip, but one way or another the better team usually does win. We got to make sure we give ourselves the best chance down the road by becoming the best team we can become.”
Through 13 games last year, Washington compiled a 12-1-0 record while scoring 32 goals and allowing eight.
This year, the Huskies have relied on a similar blueprint featuring a new cast that replaced the stars from a team that was 18-2-2, including 6-1-2 for a second-place Pac-12 finish.
In the absence of All-American forward Dylan Teves — UW’s points leader last season who signed a homegrown player contract with the Sounders — the Huskies have relied on fifth-year senior midfielder Lucas Meek, sophomore forward Ilijah Paul and junior forward Nick Scardina.
Meek leads the Pac-12 and is ranked fourth nationally with 26 points. He’s also tied with Paul for the conference lead with nine goals, while Scardina has six.
The trio has accounted for 68.6% of UW’s Pac-12 leading 35 goals.
“All very brave in how they play,” Clark said. “When they get one-versus-one situations, they’ll take defenders on.”
Meek, an All-Pac-12 second team last year, has a goal or an assist in 11 of 13 games this season.
“Meek is fantastic,” Clark said. “He’s an unorthodox winger because he’s 6-2 and most wingers are 5-10 or 5-8. … He’s a real handful out there. He gets himself in the box and is very dangerous.”
Equally lethal is UW’s suffocating defense that has eight shutouts and has not allowed a goal in the past five games.
Clark credits senior Gio Miglietti for moving from forward to defender to offset the loss of Ryan Sailor, the 2021 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year, and standout defender Kendall Burks, who were taken No. 9 and No. 11, respectively in the MLS draft in January.
“We needed a leader in the back,” Clark said. “Gio is a leader and an older guy. Ilijah had emerged in the spring and summer as a viable attacking option because Gio had been great for us the last few years. The move had to be accepted by all parties.
“Ilijah was happy to get a bigger role, and Gio realized he probably has a better chance of playing and moving forward as a central defender.”
Aside from a 1-1 tie against Air Force on Sept. 11, the Huskies’ only hiccup has been the loss of All-Pac-12 second-team goalkeeper Sam Fowler, who broke his arm earlier this month.
Sophomore Jadon Bowton has been flawless during the past three games and is expected to be in the net for the next few matches.
Clark is reticent to look too far ahead, but he knows if the Huskies can navigate the next three games unscathed, then UW would clinch its third Pac-12 title since his arrival in 2011.