Game plan won’t vary after MU’s first loss

The Missouri soccer team had, by all accounts, overachieved in its first eight games of the season. After being picked to finish eighth in the Big 12 Conference in a preseason media poll, the Tigers earned a national ranking and won seven straight games.

Despite suffering its first loss of the season Sunday, the young team chose regrouping rather than receding during the practice week.

“I think we were all kind of shocked,” senior defender Lauren Grice said. “Obviously we hadn’t lost a game, but we kept our heads up. We knew there would be a down time where we did lose, but we rebounded well and had a good week of practice.”

The frenetic start to the 2006 season was momentarily halted Sunday when the Tigers came up on the short end of a 1-0 score at Milwaukee-Wisconsin Panthers. The loss marked the first shutout and loss of the season, which is coincidental considering that the Tigers (7-1) were last shut out by the team they face tonight: the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

“I think initially we played great team defense but we got down to basics this week with team defense and not relying solely on our goalkeeper and our defenders,” coach Bryan Blitz said.

The team and their coach remain calm following the loss. There have been no serious changes, said Blitz, who maintains that the team is practicing and game planning as they did during their school record seven-game win streak. One thing Blitz and his players mention is wanting to get back to a team defensive strategy at every level. Besides that, the Tigers head into tonight’s Big 12 Conference opener against the Cornhuskers like going into any other game.

“Naturally, we recommitted ourselves, and got back to what we do which is work hard in practice,” Blitz said. “We aren’t panicking, and I think the overall team is a good evaluator and knows what they need to do to improve.”

The label of good self evaluator is apparent when hearing how some, such as goalkeeper Mallory Forst went about breaking down the loss.

“The defense and offense sat down and tried to figure out what we did wrong and figured it out ourselves,” Forst said. “I think we are good self-evaluators, and sometimes we may be too hard on ourselves.”

The Tigers have not had a great deal of success against the Cornhuskers in the program’s 11-year history, losing 13 of 14 all-time meetings. Blitz calls this an important game “only because it is our next one” and believes it can easily indicate how far his team has come.

“We can’t give them time to do what they want to do and we can shut them down and play our game,” Grice said about the Cornhuskers. “I know they like to play in the air, they are direct and good off the corner kicks.”