Coaching Staff
Varsity Schedule
JV Schedule
Roster
JV Roster
Quick Facts
Statistics
Women's Soccer Coaches Corner Last week, I wrote that the two games this week were going to be a good benchmark to see how far we have come. We lost to Lambuth and Union College last year however I felt those were two games we should have won. Before the game against Lambuth, I reminded the ladies that there is not a lot of room for error at the college level, and we have to give the effort, have good execution and be motivated for each game to achieve what we want to this season. We came out against Lambuth and were possessing the ball well but were not creating many scoring opportunities. Lots of possession but just not very dangerous. They were creating very few opportunities but did a couple off a couple of bad decisions on our part. After we had possessed the ball for a good part of the first half, they had the ball in our end and close to our goal. We were doing a pretty good job of pressuring and marking, but in a blink of an eye one of our players overcommitted, and their player went around her, found some space and hit a well placed shot in the side of the goal from just outside the box. So we went into halftime down 1-0 with about 70% of the possession. We talked at halftime about our effort and motivation level not being what it needs to win a game at this level. I reminded them that the margin of victory is not great and that with 70% of possession that we need to do better with creating scoring opportunities. The 2 nd half was much better for us. We possessed and created opportunities then defended well when we needed to. We got an early goal 5 minutes into the 2 nd half by Katie Delozier then continued to create opportunities and scored 3 goals by Nery Saucedo, Davin Caudill and CJ Link within a 8 minutes span to up 4-1. The goals had a lot to do with effort and desire. The same things we struggled with in the 1 st half that carried us for a win in the 2 nd half. On Friday, I reflected on the game with the girls and told them that if we had played the 1 st half the same way against a better team that we might be looking at being down 2 or 3 goals. That is not something we can make a habit of doing. However, I really feel like this team gets what they need to do and has a good learning curve. After every game we watch video clips of the game that show what we did well and did not. I think by them actually seeing themselves it helps us quite a bit get our point across.
I really like Saturday games. No classes to worry about so the players can focus on the game. Before the game, I wrote on the board SUCCESS IS NOT PERMANENT AND FAILURE IS NEVER FINAL. I wanted our girls to understand each time out is a challenge for success, and we have to put something into it to get something out of it. We discussed a couple of tactical things we wanted to do this game and also discussed a couple of things about our opponent, Union College. We came out flying, and they tried to pressure us but we handled everything they threw at us very well. This team was a little stronger in the back then I anticipated and were able to break up our attempts to create scoring opportunities. They were also able to make any scoring opportunities difficult to finish although we had several good looks at goal. I knew the 2 nd half would be about us being to finish opportunities and hoping they would not get one lucky one. And in the 2 nd half we would get plenty of opportunities. We had more possession and more opportunities in the 2 nd half but still lacked the killer instinct to put away our opportunities. So we would do something that we had yet to do this season and go to overtime. I stressed the importance of winning this game, coming out strong in the overtime so they did not get a lucky one and wanting to score more then they wanted to stop us. Unusually they sent a number of players forward in the beginning of overtime, we quickly won the possession and were able to break out toward the other part of the field with a 4v3. Katie Delozier hit a great pass to Davin Caudill which opened things up to a 2v1 situation. Davin waited for the last defender to commit then played a great ball to Rebecca Rube. Rebecca showed great composure by taking a touch and slotting the ball by the keeper for the golden goal and the win. Certainly, would have liked to win a little easier but our team is learning to win early on in the season which is extremely important. The other things can be worked on to improve our areas such as finishing. This week we have Lincoln Memorial a very good D2 team on Wednesday and Spalding on Saturday, both away. Another 2-0 week would be a very successful one for us.
|
