This is a conference that boasts half of its teams in the top-25. National team hopefuls from several different countries play in most of the schools. This is the Pac-10 of women’s soccer.

The Pac-10 is home to USC (12-2-1, Pac 10 2-1-1) with Beijing gold medallist Amy Rodriguez. Just across town, UCLA (13-0-2, Pac 10 4-0-0) has both U.S. gold medalist Lauren Cheney and Canadian Olympian Kara Lang.

Up north, Stanford (14-0-1, Pac-10 4-0-0) has perhaps the best young team in the nation, with some members who have experience on youth national teams. California (9-5-0, Pac-10 2-2-0) has rising star forward Alex Morgan, and Washington (10-5-0, Pac-10 1-3-0) has junior forward Veronica Perez.

But the most telling of all might be that no Pac-10 team has a bad record. Even bottom-feeder Oregon State sits respectably mediocre at 5-6-2 (Pac-10 0-2-1).

Bottom line: The Pac-10 conference is loaded.

“There’s no game that you can go into and think of it as a gimme,” said women’s soccer coach Lesle Gallimore.

Her players agree.

“In comparison to the other big conferences, it’s intense; it’s intense all the way through,” freshman goalkeeper Kari Davidson said.

Gallimore said that in any given week, many Pac-10 teams are ranked among the top few teams in the country.

“We do see a lot of girls who have a lot of speed and a lot of great skills that a lot of conferences and other teams do not have,” said senior defender Dana Stirn. “So it’s a big difference going from some of our non-conference games, which have been less challenging, to playing girls who are on the national team.”

Playing in a conference as tough as the Pac-10 is huge, especially for qualifying for an at-large berth for the NCAA tournament.

“We don’t have a conference tournament at the end of the season,” Gallimore said. “Everyone is battling to try to get the top spot and get the automatic qualifier. If you’re not going to get that, you want to get in the top half at least to make sure you’re tournament-worthy.”

She also said she believes the Pac-10 deserves six or seven teams in the tournament because of the strength of schedule.

The tough conference schedule also allows for Pac-10 teams to be better prepared for the playoff tournament.

“If you play in a tough conference like the Pac-10 [and] you’re able to get through the conference play and earn a tournament bid, you’re in a way better position to have an opportunity not only to get to the tournament but to compete well and get far in the tournament and vie for a national championship,” Gallimore said.

But playing in a tough conference means losing a few games, and the Huskies had their share of tough matchups by playing all four California schools to open the Pac-10 season.

During that stretch, UW faced some of the best offenses in the nation.

“I think Stanford’s one of the best attacking teams I’ve seen in a long time, anywhere in the country,” Gallimore said.

Stanford might have led the way, beating the Huskies 5-1, but UCLA and USC were no slouches either, scoring four and three points, respectivelly, against Washington.

The California schools’ offensive barrage did not discourage the Huskies though.

“Playing against the best forwards make us better defenders,” Davidson said.

The fact that the best offensive units of Stanford and UCLA are also complemented by elite defenses didn’t help the Huskies.

Senior forward Melissa Beal said playing a great defense like Stanford’s means frustration for forwards.

“But I feel like we’ve learned to put those away,” she said. “At least, [we’ve] come a lot closer than we have in the past to getting the ball in the back of the net and taking the opportunity to put it away.”

Given what the Huskies had to face, they came away from the first four matches decently, going 1-3.

“I just think we’re more toward the middle of the pack as far as matching up depth and talent,” Gallimore said. “We’re a few players away from getting to that [elite] level.”

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.