The Arizona Wildcats open soccer season on Wednesday evening at GCU. If there’s one thing the players and coaches can agree on it’s that they will need to limit their turnovers if they hope to have success against the Lopes and the rest of their schedule. It’s a problem that cropped up in their exhibition against UC Irvine last week.
“[At] UC Irvine, we just weren’t great on the ball,” said junior midfielder Lily Boydstun. “Our quality on the ball wasn’t good, and it kind of hurt us when we got into the attacking third because we had a lot of turnovers.”
Those turnovers meant that Arizona had possession of the ball roughly 25 percent of the time. Part of that is youth and a group that’s learning to play together and fill new roles.
“You have some young players trying to make an impact, and they might be choosing the wrong opportunities to dribble and go themselves,” said head coach Becca Moros. “So, a little bit you have to let people figure that out.”
On many occasions, it wasn’t even what the Anteaters were doing on defense. It did what exhibitions are supposed to do, though. The mistakes provided the coaching staff with some points to focus on in this week’s preparation for the regular season opener.
“Unforced errors,” Moros said. “We had around 20 that were truly unforced. Some of them were bad decisions that then became forced errors from the other team. So I’m more concerned with the decisions versus the unforced errors, where okay, someone technically broke down. Maybe they’re a little nervous. Whatever’s going on. But I think the ones where, you know, did we make the right choice? We want to address those choices and see how we can equip them to feel confident and make better choices.”
There were other things to work on between the exhibition and Wednesday’s match against the Lopes.
“We focus on a little bit of our understanding of space and timing as a unit,” Moros said. “So, how the midfield moves together, and also how we create kind of a high line of possession, and then we’ve also worked quite a bit on our mid-block defense and our building out of the back.”
As the ‘building out of the back’ comment implies, there will be no big changes in tactics this season. Moros said that some things may look different simply because they have new personnel, especially in at the midfield and forward positions. Overall, though, the principles and scheme will be the same as the past five seasons.
Opponent: GCU Lopes
When: Wednesday, Aug. 12 at 7 p.m. MST
Where: GCU Stadium in Phoenix, Ariz.
Stream:Mountain West Plus (subscription)
Stats: Arizona Live Stats
The most experienced part of the team is the defense. Senior Marissa Arnst is a key part of that unit. Along with fifth-year midfielder Trinity Dorsey and senior forward Ella Weathersby, Arnst is a captain of this year’s team. She will team up with junior Zoe Mendiola and senior Aranda Hurge to provide the continuity in the back line.
There are plenty of newcomers on the team, though. Freshman center back Amanda Maynard was able to get time with the team during spring, as was freshman midfielder Emerson Stoft. Transfer Ally Brown also brings a new face to the Wildcats’ midfield.
Brown and fellow sophomore Lainey Swanson transferred to Arizona after spending their freshman seasons at TCU. Both also played together in high school at Xavier Prep in Phoenix. Getting close to home and attending her parents’ alma mater were both attractive to Brown, but the style of play that Moros loves was also a big pull.
“I really liked their possession style soccer team, which is hard to find sometimes in college soccer, and so that’s why,” Brown said. “Especially being a midfielder, you kind of need that.”
Moros sees a lot of potential in Brown across the board. She just needs some time to settle in.
“Ally’s exceptionally mobile, fit, hardworking, skillful,” Moros said. “I think she’s creating relationships with the people around her, and that’s probably our biggest opportunity to get her involved is just she and her teammates building good relationships on the field and understanding how each other likes to be brought into the game. So I definitely think that that’s progressing little by little. But she’s been tremendous so far, and I think she’ll bring something for us on the offensive side, and and her work rate defensively will be super strong as well.”
Getting on the scoreboard will be key for Arizona after it struggled to score last season and again in the exhibition against UC Irvine. There are some players who made an impression in California, and Moros thinks the offseason personnel changes could be a positive for Arizona on the offensive end.
Sophomore Kyleigh Johnson was probably the most productive for the amount of minutes she played in the exhibition. Moros also sees another youngster who could step into a scoring role.
“I think Ashley May is a good strike partner,” Moros said. “She’s playing out of position from what she played in club, so it’s taken a little while to figure out other roles. But to be anywhere near where she is after three weeks is a big credit to her and and her ability. She is also very fit. Came in really ready to go as a freshman, so that’s been super positive.”
The mindset of the attackers is an important aspect that the coaches are trying to develop, but not all of the pressure is on them. Moros likes the work of the team on the defensive end, but she wants her midfielders and defenders to get up the field, too.
“Now it’s definitely how do we build confidence in these younger attacking players who need to do big jobs and making sure that each game they have a little bit of feedback and ability to get a little better and a little better and a little better,” Moros said. “So I’d like to see more from that, and I think if we can limit some of the turnovers we have, we’ll have a little more offense coming out of that midfield unit joining the front line. Whereas like when you constantly have turnovers or have too many, you’re in transition a lot, and so it’s hard to get people up the field. We also have good attacking presence from our fullbacks, but same thing.-You can’t expect your fullbacks to get all the way into the attack in two or three passes. So we have to make sure we’re still in possession after that third, fourth, fifth pass, so they have a chance to join the offense and be a little bit more of a threat there.”
The players want to build on that and the cohesion they felt in the Irvine game. It’s a big part of their identity as a group.
“Our team has good reactions after you make mistakes,” Weathersby said. “Everyone wanting to win the ball back and fight for the person next to them, and we play with a lot of cohesion and a lot of flexibility in the way that we build and attack. And then we’re really disciplined defensively.”
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