Try and put a roadblock in front of misfortune. It’s impossible.
Adversity is the bane of every team’s existence and no matter how much you try and block, redirect or escape it, it will eventually find you.
How the team responds is what defines them, what builds their character, and what eventually makes them stronger.
Adversity finally hunted down the University of Tampa women’s soccer team these past few weeks as they have struggled to score goals and pull out close game victories recently.
After beginning the season with an 8-2 record, perched in first with a comfortable lead in the SSC, the UT women began having difficulty scoring goals resulting in three ties in four games.
The cold streak allowed for Rollins University to leapfrog UT in the standings and take sole possession of first place.
“It’s a combination of misfortune and great goalkeeping on the part of the other team,” Head Coach Gerry Lucey said in a phone interview. “We’ve been getting the looks, just have to make good decisions and find teammates.”
The women have in fact been getting good looks at the goal, recording 42 shots on goal in their last five games, while in contrast opponents have had just 12.
While the statistics indicate the team is doing the things they need to in order to win, they would still like to see improvement. “We’re playing great defense,” Coach Lucey lauded, “but I’d like to see more character, more leadership to carry us to and through the tournament.”
The lack of offensive production has created a heavy burden on the defense, and goalie in particular, to not allow any goals.
“If you let in one goal, you’re not doing your job,” goalkeeper Kori Butterfield said. “Letting in one goal should make the offense be more aggressive.”
Butterfield, a junior transfer from Central Washington University is having a stellar year having allowed only nine goals with 33 saves thus far this season.
Only a junior, Butterfield is considered by some to be a veteran on the team that has six freshmen starters.
It would be easy and possibly justified to point to the youth of the team, as a possible reason for the recent struggles but Butterfield doesn’t see it in that way.
“It doesn’t matter how young we are,” Butterfield expressed. “Better communication could have resulted in wins rather than ties.”
After their game against Florida resulted in a second straight tie the team tried what they called a ‘silent practice’ to help improve communication on the field.
“We basically went the whole practice without talking,” forward Lauren Moore explained. “It showed us how important communication was. Everyone was talking afterwards.”
Moore, a sophomore advertisement and public relations major from north Tampa, has been playing at the UT soccer fields for nearly a decade.
“I’ve been coming to the campus and playing in Coach Lucey’s summer camps since I was 11,” Moore said with smile.
This season has been a breakout year for the sophomore forward as she leads the team in nearly every offensive category including shots (72), goals (15) and shots on goal (33). Moore also leads the conference in goals.
Despite her fantastic offensive stats, even Moore could not evade the recent offensive struggles the team faced. “We took the ties in stride,” Moore said confidently. “Half was balls not bouncing our way, other half was we weren’t ruthless enough.”
With the offensive numbers Moore has put up this season, she maintains that the team doesn’t rely on her to score.
“Not one player is expected to score,” Moore clarified. “I’m expected to score as a role of an attacking offensive player but the whole offense has the expectation to score.”
With her breakout season, Moore has also adopted more of a team leadership role, one that Coach Lucey has been looking for.
“I try to lead the team more this season,” Moore said, “by example in the way I practice as well as vocally.”
While Moore is trying to take a bigger leadership role on the team, she admits she still looks up to senior midfielder Courtney Peffley. “She’s a vocal leader,” Moore said. “She’ll tell you if you’re not doing something right.”
As the women enter postseason play this weekend, they will try to move past the disappointment of finishing second in the SSC.
“We would have liked to have won the regular season title,“ Coach Lucey said, “but we’ve been successful in tournament play so we are looking towards that.”
Successful they have been, winning four of the last six SSC tournaments. But to continue that success and make the type of deep run the team expects to, they will need consistent play out of Moore and the offense.
Coach Lucey insists that a 4-0 thumping of Saint Leo in the regular season finale righted the offensive wrongs.
The team will find out if that is the case as they wait through a first round bye in the SSC tournament to play either Eckerd College or Nova Southeastern University.
Tampa has a 3-0 lifetime record against those schools in SSC tournament play.
Nathan Krohn can be reached at nathan.krohn@spartans.ut.edu.