Dave Barrett's Coach's Comments

Titans record moves to 2-2 with split against Nationally Ranked Opponents; 1-0 victory over Washington U. moves IWU to a tie for 4th in the Central Region and #24 in the latest national coaches’ poll
September 11, 2006—Once again the Titan women’s soccer team welcomed two quality opponents to Neis Field last weekend.  On Saturday, UW Eau Claire came to town and handed the Titans a tough 2-1 defeat.  Eau Claire, ranked #1 in the Central Region this week and #6 in the nation, used a very stingy defense to keep the Titans off the scoreboard until late in the game when Ashley Goergen converted a penalty kick to bring the Titans within one goal with under 5 minutes to play.  The Titans kept pushing for the equalizer but could not find it before time expired.
On Sunday, we hosted #21 Washington University, yet another quality side.  We have had good success against the Bears since 2001, and once again we played a good game.  The teams battled to a scoreless draw through 90 minutes of soccer, leading to the Titans’ first overtime game of the season, and fourth overtime game in six years against Wash U.  In the 95th minute, we earned a corner kick after a good attack.  Senior Lyndsay O’Brien served in the ball that was knocked down by an on-running sophomore Tanya Hnastchenko.  The goalkeeper made an initial save but was unable to control the ball.  The loose ball was pounced on by freshman Elizabeth Sinclair who, with her first collegiate goal, gave the Titans a hard fought 1-0 victory.  I was very proud of our team in responding to a variety of challenges on the day.  We needed to demonstrate to ourselves that we could beat a top team.  It was important for us to get this result and possibly give us a huge boost of confidence after the first two weeks of the season.
So far this season our region has proven to be extremely strong, with 5 teams in each of the past two weeks ranked in the top 25 in the nation.  This week the coaches voted IWU #4 in the region (behind in order: 1. UW Eau Claire, 2. Macalester, and 3. U of Chicago; Wheaton is tied with us for fourth position) and #24 in the nation.  It is nice to be recognized for our work but we all know it is a long season and there are many important games yet to be played before anything is resolved.We have played one of the toughest schedules in the country thus far, having played the top team in our region, Calvin College who is #3 in their region and #20 in the nation, in addition to Wash U (a very good team who will be heard from again this season).  Our hope is that we can get positive outcomes when we play these teams, but that they also prepared us for our conference schedule that will begin later this month.  We hope that by putting our players under pressure from the get-go will enable us to learn how to play and win tough games late in the season and in the post-season.
We finish up our season-opening 5-game home stand with a game Wednesday evening against Lake Forest College, currently 2-0.  We then play yet another nationally ranked team on Saturday when we visit #16 University of Chicago, a team that made the NCAA Division 3 Final Four in 2005.  They graduated a HUGE senior class, but still are a very good team and we’ll have to play well to get two good results this week.
Go Titans!

2006 Titans Split Season Opening Games with Michigan Teams
September 5, 2006—The 2006 Titan women’s soccer season kicked off once again with the team hosting its annual Titan Soccer Classic.  As with past seasons, we try to bring in quality opponents to get the season going and give us a sense of what type of team we have.
We succeeded in our mission again this past weekend.  On Friday and Saturday we hosted the 2005 Co-Champions of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association, Calvin College and Hope College.  Like ourselves, both teams qualified for the 2005 NCAA tournament and between them won 36 games in 2005.
On Friday, we defeated Hope 2-1 behind goals from freshman Beth Talentowski (her first college goal) and sophomore Caroline Leighton.  Additionally, in the game senior Lyndsay O’Brien became our program’s all time leader in career assists.  She had entered the season tied with Marisa Johnson ’05 (25 each), but Lyndsay set up Beth’s goal to move into first place.  Here’s hoping she has many, many more assists this season!
On Saturday we stumbled a bit against Calvin and lost 2-1.  Despite leading 1-0 at the half on a great strike from O’Brien, we made a couple of costly errors in a three minute span to begin the second half.  Calvin, ever the opportunists, capitalized and scored two goals on counters which led to the final result.
Overall I thought we did okay, all things considered.  Among those things include: Calvin (ranked #5 in their region) and Hope (ranked #10 in their region) are both good teams as demonstrated by their past results and what will sure be very solid seasons for them both this fall.  Second, we held out several key players for about 7 days over the last couple calendar weeks, meaning we didn’t train with a full team until Wednesday of last week, and that makes game preparation more challenging.  Finally, we are starting three freshmen and while they are all doing very well, they are prone to the occasionally hiccup.  Hopefully everyone saw the enormous potential for the team, though, as we did do many very positive things in both games.
The Titans are ranked #7 in the current Central Regional poll.  Our region in 2006 is very strong as demonstrated by the fact that the top 5 in our region are all ranked in the top 25 nationally.  Among those ahead of us in the rankings are UW-Eau Claire (#2 in the region and #13 in the nation) and Washington University (#4 in the region and #21 in the nation).  We host both this weekend in what will surely be a good test for us to really gauge our quality.
We’ll be working on some important things this week with close to a full team, which will be great.  We are optimistic and hope to get two good results this weekend against 2 very good sides.
Go Titans!
Off and Running in '06!
August 28, 2006--Welcome to 2006 soccer season!  We are officially off and running having been through our pre-season stretch of double sessions and getting everyone acclimated to each other.  We concluded our pre-season with a scrimmage at nationally ranked Depauw University on Saturday afternoon.
To set the stage a bit: we have been dealing with some injuries during the pre-season and I was concerned about those athletes more so than I was about the outcome of the scrimmage.  We held out 7 players, most of whom will be back in uniform training this week, however we will be without the services of sophomore Sarah Alley until sometime in early-mid October.  She fractured her ankle in the first day of training and has been in a boot ever since.  We are keeping our fingers crossed things go well for her, though, and she'll be available again for the final weeks of the season.  The other injuries are largely mild in comparison: sore hamstrings, groins, and quad muscles that all just needed a bit of time and rest to heal.  Our trainer has been working overtime with them to get them ready to play again this week.  Hopefully the rest will prove useful and we'll have most back this week.
As for the game itself I thought we played very well overall, but especially in goal, in the back, and in the midfield.  We defended well (final score was 1-0 for Depauw and they scored late in the game when we had been liberally substituting) and didn't allow them more than 1 or 2 good looks at goal for the majority of the game.  Our midfield play was very good and leaves much to be optimistic about.  Once we sort out our play in the offensive third of the field I think we have the makings for a very solid team.
Monday was the first day of classes so I am sure the girls are adjusting to being back in the role as student-athletes.  We open this Friday in our annual Titan Soccer Classic against Hope College at 7:30 pm.  We then will play Calvin College on Saturday night, also at 7:30 pm.  Both teams were in the NCAA tournament last year and we expect strong competition from both sides to open up the 2006 campaign.
Check back here throughout the season as I will keep the page updated after our games.  Go Titans!