The Bears celebrate a goal during an early-season win. (Bri Nitsberg | Managing Photo Editor)

The University Athletic Association (UAA) is one of Division III’s most difficult conferences for women’s soccer, hosting five nationally ranked programs. Currently, the No. 1 WashU women’s soccer team shares the top spot in the UAA with No. 3 Carnegie Mellon University — both with perfect 3-0 conference records. This weekend, that will change as WashU takes on Carnegie Mellon and No. 14 Case Western Reserve University in St. Louis on Oct. 25 and 27. One team will look to emerge as the UAA frontrunner — and it will likely be the team that wins on Friday.

This weekend marks two firsts for the Bears this season — their first UAA doubleheader and their first match against a Top Ten opponent. The matchups will give the Bears good practice for the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) tournament, where short turnaround times between games are common. Most importantly, this weekend will play a decisive role in determining the UAA champion, and which team receives the coveted auto-qualifier to the national tournament.

“I think [you’ve] got to try to take a little bit of a page out of basketball’s book, who does it every weekend, where championships are won on Sunday,” head coach Jim Conlon said about playing back-to-back matches.

WashU’s toughest test of the weekend will come on Friday against Carnegie Mellon. The No. 3 Tartans, who WashU drew last season in Pittsburgh, are undefeated with a 10-0-4 record, including drawing their first match 0-0 to then No. 7 Messiah University. The Tartans have yet to concede a goal in UAA play, and are outscoring opponents a combined 28-4.

Two days after, the Bears will face Case Western. While this weekend is the Bears’ first conference doubleheader, it is not their first twin-bill of the season. After a victory over No. 23 Emory University to begin UAA play, the Bears extended their stay in Atlanta to play Piedmont University. Despite playing on tired legs less than 24 hours after a close match against the Eagles, WashU pulled out its largest win since 2016 — crushing Piedmont 9-0.

“That’s been a training model earlier in the year,” Conlon said. “It’s the reason we stayed down in Atlanta to pick up Piedmont as a game, just to see what that 24-hour turnaround feels on your legs. It’s why we were able to play Rhodes [College] to DePauw [University] back-to-back. It’s the reason we played Rose-Hulman [Institute of Technology] and went up to Calvin [University]. So I think we’ll be ready for it.”

Case Western currently sits second from the bottom of the UAA table and is still searching for its first conference win, having drawn No. 15 New York University (NYU) and lost to No. 25 Emory University and the University of Rochester. Before facing WashU on Sunday, Case Western will begin their weekend with a match against the University of Chicago. 

Despite Case Western dropping out of the national rankings, though they received votes in the week seven poll, the Bears will not have an easy match ahead of them. As Conlon explained after defeating NYU, “The numbers of moving up and down a ranking are so miniscule in the actual content on the field … if you’re a Top 25 team, you’re going to be good.”

While winning the UAA Championship, like the Bears did in 2023, is not the only avenue to the national tournament, it is the simplest route.

“The easiest way to do well in the tournament is to win the conference,” Conlon said at the start of the season. “So we have to be ready to do that — we have to be ready to take on anyone in the UAA. And ultimately, if we can accomplish that goal of winning the UAA, we know we’ll be ready for a good run, because the conference is very good.”  

In a league where the 2023 championship came down to the last game of regular-season play, every match matters. For WashU, a Top 5 team with the top spot in the conference on the line — these two matches matter just a little bit more than others.