They won’t roll into San Francisco Friday with hard hats and orange vests, but make no mistake, the Chico State women’s soccer team plans on doing some roadwork. Beginning with visits to San Francisco State Friday at 3 p.m. and Cal Poly Pomona Sunday at 2 p.m., the Wildcats will play four of their final six regular season matches on the road.

Trailing Sonoma State by two points for California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) North Division lead and Cal Poly Pomona by one in the race for the final wildcard berth into the CCAA Championship Tournament, the Wildcats understand that if they want to be playing beyond the regular season, they’ll have to finish strong, beginning this weekend.

Sonoma State has 19 points and Chico State 17. (Teams receive three points for each win and one point for each tie.) Cal State Stanislaus is also very much in the hunt with 15 points. UC San Diego leads the South Division by 24 points and Cal State L.A. boasts 20. Cal Poly Pomona (18 points) and San Francisco State (16) are still very much alive in the postseason hunt, while Cal State Dominguez Hills and Cal State San Bernardino (13 points each) and Cal State East Bay (10) still have an outside chance.

The winners of the North and South Divisions earn an automatic berth in the CCAA Championship Tournament, along with the two teams with the next highest point totals regardless of division.

Chico State heads into the weekend with an overall record of 5-4-3 and CCAA mark of 5-3-2. The Wildcats have played very well defensively of late behind their emerging true freshman goalkeeper Brianna Furner. They’ve allowed just two goals in their last four matches, five in the last eight, and never more than a one since their fourth match of the season.

Offensively, the Wildcats have struggled lately. They were shut out twice last weekend (in a 0-0 tie with 2nd-ranked UC San Diego and a heartbreaking 1-0 loss to Cal State San Bernardino on a goal in the waning minutes).

In order to stop that streak, Chico State will have to end two others. The Wildcats haven’t scored against either San Francisco State or Cal Poly Pomona since 2007. They lost to San Francisco State twice last season (1-0 in overtime at San Francisco State and 2-0 at home), and in 2009, both meetings ended in scoreless draws. The Gators won both 2008 battles 1-0. Since Anjie Goulding’s 58th-minute strike in a 1-0 win at San Francisco State on Oct. 7, 2007, the San Francisco State has kept the Wildcats off the board for more than 627 minutes of action.

They’ll look to senior leading scorers Lisa Webster (four goals) and Kasey Wall (three) to help them break that trend.

Webster took a match-high three shots in the Wildcats’ 1-0 overtime loss to Cal Poly Pomona last season. A late goal lifted Cal Poly Pomona to a 1-0 win against the Wildcats in 2009. And in 2008, they played to a scoreless draw.

The good news is, Furner and her first line of defense – Molly Downtain, Shelby Dunlap, Carly Singer and Danielle Leiva – give the Wildcats a great chance to win if they can get one in the net. The defense has allowed just four shots on goal per game this season, and Furner has foiled 18 of the last 19 shots on goal she’s faced.

Live stats for both matches will be available at ccaalivestats.com.

The Wildcats will see their last home action the following weekend when they host Cal State East Bay on “Pack the House” night Friday at 4:30 and Cal State Monterey Bay on “Senior Day” Sunday at 11:30 a.m. They’ll head back on the road to wrap up the regular season against Humboldt State Oct. 28 and Sonoma State Oct. 30.