Weber State women’s soccer took a tough loss Friday but won Sunday to split its weekend southern road trip and put the Wildcats in solid position to qualify for the Big Sky Conference tournament with four matches left in the regular season.

Weber State (7-6, 4-1 Big Sky, 12 points) sits in second place in the league table, behind flawless Northern Colorado (7-6-2, 5-0, 15 points). The top six teams in the 10-team league make the tournament.

WSU took to the turf late Friday in Flagstaff, Arizona, and took a 4-1 loss to the Lumberjacks (5-10, 3-3, 9 points). Both teams took 11 shots, NAU got nine on goal to WSU’s six, and converted four.

That match went from iffy at a 2-0 halftime score, to over when NAU’s Sam Larberg scored two goals within a minute of each other to put NAU up 4-0 in the 58th minute. Morgan Furmaniak punched one into the net in the 89th minute for WSU.

The Wildcats bounced back with a 1-0 shutout of Southern Utah (1-12-1, 0-5-1, 1 point) on Sunday afternoon in Cedar City. Taylor Slack scored in the 57th minute, assisted by Furmaniak, for the winner. Kaytlin Bradley claimed the clean sheet, tallying seven saves in goal.

WSU has scored 15 goals in 13 matches this season. Furmaniak has been involved in eight of them, with four goals and four assists. Slack has five goals.

Weber State plays its final home matches of the season this week, hosting Sacramento State (3-8-2, 2-3, 6 points) at 3 p.m. Friday and Portland State (4-7-1, 2-2-1, 7 points) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Wildcat Soccer Field.

NAY PLAYER OF WEEK

Weber State sophomore Dani Nay was named the Big Sky volleyball offensive player of the week after the Wildcats swept Idaho State and Northern Colorado at home last week.

In a battle of conference undefeateds against Northern Colorado, Nay totaled 10 kills in the three sets and hit .375. She had 18 kills for the week with a .326 hitting percentage, and added two aces. Nay is tied for first in the country with 42 aces this season and WSU (11-5, 6-0 Big Sky) is seventh nationally as a team with 2.07 aces per set.

Weber State hits the road for contests against Southern Utah (5-13, 1-5) at 6 p.m. Thursday and Northern Arizona (6-9, 4-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both will stream on ESPN+.

FOOTBALL RANKED OPPONENT AGAIN

For the fourth straight home game, Weber State football will host a ranked opponent as the Montana State Bobcats (5-1, 3-0 Big Sky) come to Stewart Stadium to take on WSU (2-3, 1-1) at 8 p.m. Friday in a game that will air on ESPNU.

Montana State is ranked No. 9 in this week’s STATS FCS Top 25, which was released Monday. MSU is the third straight home opponent of WSU’s to be ranked in the top 10 at the time of the game.

Weber State remained at No. 19 after a bye week. The Wildcats have been ranked for 52 consecutive weeks in the STATS poll.

Around the Big Sky, Eastern Washington rose to No. 2 after Villanova (now No. 6) defeated James Madison (now No. 8). Montana checks in at No. 5 and UC Davis fell to No. 13 after being upset on the road by Idaho State.

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