Pitt women’s soccer team releases spring schedule

The Pitt women’s soccer team announced on Thursday morning that it had scheduled two additional games for the spring. The Panthers started the 2020-21 season with a front-loaded slate in the fall, going 9-5 in that early stretch and earning their first-ever national ranking.

The two games that will make up the entirety of Pitt’s spring schedule and complete its regular-season slate include a City Game matchup with Duquesne and a date with Marshall. Pitt will play Duquesne at Ambrose Urbanic Field on March 7 at 1 p.m. ET, and the team will take on Marshall in Huntington, West Virginia, on March 21 at 1 p.m. ET.

“Our staff cannot wait to get started this spring, and I know the players are ready as well,” Pitt head coach Randy Waldrum said. “We had a great start to the season so far this past fall and hope to build on it this spring.”

While the majority of the season is behind Pitt, the team will still have an opportunity to set a program record for wins in a season. However, the Panthers will have to defeat both the Dukes and the Thundering Herd to do so, as the current record is 10 wins. That record was set in 2015, when Pitt played to a 10-7-1 record.

The two games will also provide Pitt star Amanda West with a chance to improve on what has already been the best season of her career. In the fall, West broke her own program record for goals in a season by scoring 13 in 14 games. She also broke her own record for points in a season, accumulating 30 last year by adding four assists to her 13 goals.

Pitt has been practicing for its upcoming games since Jan. 25. The spring opener will pit the Panthers against a Duquesne team that went 6-8-3 in 2019 and did not compete in 2020. The regular-season finale will see Pitt play a Marshall squad that went 4-14 in 2019 and also did not play in 2020. However, the Herd will have several games in the books by late March, when Pitt comes to town.