Hope Hisey, Madison Goerlinger take home week 1 Pac-12 soccer awards

The Pac-12 coaches were not impressed by Arizona soccer coming into the season. The Wildcats were picked to finish last in the conference, but things looked slightly different after the first week of play.

The pollsters were impressed by the defensive effort of Arizona in its wins over Iowa State and Texas Tech to open the year, awarding both of its defensive-oriented weekly honors to the Wildcats after they became the only Pac-12 team to open the season with two wins over Power 5 teams. Senior goalkeeper Hope Hisey was voted the Pac-12 Goalkeeper of the Week and senior midfielder Madison Goerlinger was tabbed as the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week.

The pair are the first Wildcats to win a weekly conference soccer award since Jill Aguilera was honored in the final week of the 2021 regular season after UA defeated Arizona State. She earned the award after setting the Arizona record for career goals scored.

Hisey faced 17 shots against the Red Raiders on Aug. 21. Six of those shots were on goal. She had five saves on the way to the 15th clean sheet of her career.

Just three days earlier, the Cyclones took six shots and put three of them on goal. Hisey saved two.

Hisey became the first goalkeeper to win the weekly award since Lainey Burdett did it on Oct. 13, 2018.

Goerlinger was critical to a defensive effort that limited Texas Tech to putting just 6 of their 17 shots on goal. Last season, the Red Raiders had a 0.479 shots-on-goal percentage putting 136 of their 284 shots on goal. The Wildcats limited them to 0.353 under the direction of Goerlinger.

Goerlinger is the first Arizona defender to win the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week award since Samantha Falasco did it on Aug. 22, 2017.