Women’s soccer puts past behind them, focused on No. 10 Nebraska and Iowa

Jacob Wright
Fri, 23 Sep 2016 19:56:01 +0000
Soccer, Sports, Buckeyes, Jillian mcVicker, lindsey agnew, Lori Walker, Morgan Wolcott, Nichelle Prince, Ohio State women's soccer

Junior forward Nichelle Prince (7) dribbles with the ball during a game against Minnesota on Sept. 17, 2015. Credit: Lantern File Photo

The No. 17 Ohio State women’s soccer team returns home in search of its first win in two weeks.

The Buckeyes suffered a loss to then-No. 13 Minnesota and tied Wisconsin last weekend. OSU also lost redshirt senior goalkeeper Jillian McVicker for the season due to injury.

The Buckeyes face off against tenth-ranked Nebraska in the first of two home games this weekend. Redshirt senior defender/forward Morgan Wolcott doesn’t anticipate Nebraska being an easy comeback game.

“Nebraska always gives us a challenge,” Wolcott said. “They are a physical team … and we’ve struggled against them. (The team) feels prepared coming off of last weekend, which didn’t go as planned.”

Nebraska has a 7-3-0 record in 2016, and the Cornhuskers will be coming to Columbus off of their most recent loss to Michigan. Overall, Nebraska has been playing a very consistent game with no notable statistical difference between its goals scored or its shots attempted in the first and second halves.

The Buckeyes take on Iowa this Sunday at noon. Iowa owns a 6-4-0 record, with its two most recent losses being against Big Ten teams, Michigan and Michigan State. Before the Hawkeyes play OSU this weekend, Iowa takes on Penn State. The Hawkeyes have scored almost two-thirds of their goals in the second half. The Buckeyes have allowed 15 goals this season, 11 coming in the second half.

OSU is determined to not allow the outcomes of their recent games affect their performance for the future.

“Sometimes we get caught off guard … we need to get back to the basics of our system,” Wolcott said. “We tried to complicate things too much.”

To keep things simple, the team has adopted a new mantra. In practices, the Buckeyes try to “get one percent better every day.”

“If we can just keep getting one percent better, we feel like by November, when post-season comes, we’re going to be the team we want to be, but right now I’m pretty happy,” said senior forward Lindsay Agnew. “We have a great group of girls, so we just have to keep it going.”