(MATCH NOTES - PDF)

OPENING TOUCH: Dixie State opens its 2016 season this week as the Trailblazers head to Portland, Ore., for a pair of matches against Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) opponents. DSU begins the trip Thursday night against Concordia (OR) at 7 p.m. (PT), followed by a neutral site date against Seattle Pacific on Saturday at 11 a.m. (PT). Both matches will be played at Tuominen Yard on the CUP campus.

DIXIE STATE VS. THIS WEEK'S OPPONENTS: Thursday's match at Concordia will mark the first time that the Trailblazers and Cavaliers will have met on the pitch. Then on Saturday, Dixie State will look to record its first victory against SPU in four tries as the Falcons have won the previous three matches between the two teams, including a 3-0 decision in the last meeting in Seattle in 2013.

COACHING STAFF: Head Coach Kacey Bingham (Arizona State, 2006) begins her fourth season on the Trailblazers bench as Dixie State enters its second decade of NCAA competition. Bingham has compiled a 28-20-3 overall record at DSU, including a 24-12-1 mark in Pacific West Conference play. Last season Bingham led DSU to an 11-6-0 overall record, the most wins in her brief tenure as head coach, which included a 9-4-0 PacWest mark and a fourth-place league finish.
Bingham is joined on the sideline by fourth-year assistant Rielee Reed, third-year assistant Abby Johnson and former DSU men's soccer player Nyle Ortiz, who is assisting both the DSU men's and women's programs.

TRAILBLAZERS PICKED FIFTH IN PACWEST: Dixie State was picked to finish fifth in the annual Pacific West Conference preseason coaches' poll released on August 18. Azusa Pacific and defending champion Point Loma each collected six first-place votes, but APU edged PLNU by two points, 184-182, to claim the top spot on the poll. Concordia University Irvine was tabbed for third place with 162 points, while California Baptist received one first place vote to finish fourth with 157 points, followed by DSU (141 points) in fifth, Fresno Pacific (125) in sixth and Hawai'i Pacific (108) in seventh to round out the top-half of the poll.
Dixie State did not land a player on the PacWest preseason team or on either of the preseason position player of the year lists.

2015 RETURNEES: Dixie State returns 18 letter winners from last year's 11-6-0 team, including six regular starters who accounted for nearly half of the team's goal-scoring from a season ago, highlighted by junior forward Darian McCloy (Herriman, Utah/Herriman HS) (Herriman, Utah/Herriman HS), who co-led the team with seven goals to go with two assists in 2015. DSU also returns senior midfielder Alexis Torres (Tucson, Ariz./Palo Verde HS) (Tucson, Ariz./Palo Verde HS) who scored four goals last year, along with redshirt senior forward Erica Gonzalez (Avondale, Ariz./Westview HS) (Avondale, Ariz./Paradise Valley CC), who sat out the 2015 campaign after she tallied five goals and four assists in 2014.

On the defensive side, DSU returns four starters who helped lead the Trailblazers to six shutout wins last year, including senior D/MF Aubri Detmer (Austin, Texas/Lake Travis HS) (Austin, Texas/Lake Travis HS), and junior defenders Shelby Christensen (Bountiful, Utah/Woods Cross HS) (Bountiful, Utah/Woods Cross HS), Montana (Tanner) Hadley (Bountiful, Utah/Viewmont HS), and Breanna Parkinson (Tucson, Ariz./Sahauro HS) (Tucson, Ariz./Sahauro HS). Between the pipes, senior netminders Angelica Ciucci (Stockholm, Sweden/Thorildsplans Gymnasium) (Stockholm, Sweden/Thorildsplans Gymnasium) and junior Sarah Beecher (Kaysville, Utah/Davis HS) (Kaysville, Utah/Davis HS) each enter the season with the most experience in goal for the DSU side.

QUICK HITS: Dixie State begins its second decade of NCAA play this season, and the women's soccer program has played to a 101-67-12 (.594) overall record the first 10 years of four-year competition ... The Trailblazers are 5-2-3 all-time in season-opening matches in the program's D-II era, which included a 2-0 road win at Antelope Valley last season, which broke a string of three-straight draws to begin a season.

HEAD COACH KACEY BINGHAM ON THE 2016 SQUAD: "We are excited to get started this year and we have high expectations for this group. I think we have some new players that will need to step in right away but we will rely heavily on our returners. We need to have a big focus on defending this year, last year it wasn't good enough. We have some early games this year against some very tough competition that will test us."

UP NEXT: Dixie State opens its nine-match home slate next weekend as the Trailblazers will play two matches at Legend Solar Stadium. DSU opens the homestand with a date against Humboldt State on Thursday, Sept. 8 at 7:30 p.m., followed by a match against preseason No. 24-ranked Sonoma State on Saturday, Sept. 10 at 12:30 p.m.

In addition to the two Trailblazer matches, DSU will host a pair of neutral site games, beginning Thursday with Colorado Mesa taking on Sonoma State at 5 p.m., followed by a CMU vs. HSU tilt Saturday morning at 10 a.m.