Young USD soccer team prepares for final stretch

This past weekend, the women’s soccer team extended their two-game losing streak to four, with losses to both Fort Wayne and Oakland. Hoping to end the streak, the team will head north to take on North Dakota State (6-8-0) on Oct. 19.

Playing at home, USD took on the Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne Mastodons and Oakland University Grizzlies over the weekend and were shut out 0-3 and 0-2, respectively. The losses dropped the Coyotes to 1-11-3 on the season and 0-4-1 against conference opponents.

Despite the losses and tough breaks this season, head coach Mandy Green said she is pleased with the team’s progress.

“We are possessing the ball a lot better,” Green said. “We still have a lot of fight in us: We are learning, growing and starting to read the game better. It’s like the light bulb is finally turning on with a lot of things.”

Going into the final three matchups, Green said she hopes the team continues to improve on their current

progress.

“We will keep working on doing things a little bit quicker, cleaner and faster than we’ve been doing,” said Green. “We want to go in and play with a spoiler mentality for these last three games,

Junior Jenny Teslow believes the team needs to keep a strong attitude in order to capture a victory.

“Each time we lose, it’s frustrating, but we need to put the past behind us,” Teslow said. “We need to pick ourselves up and be positive.”

The team will then take on in-state rival South Dakota State (3-9-2) Oct. 21 in

Brookings.

“The attitude changes especially against any rival.” said senior Rachel Greene. “Now that SDSU is back in our conference instead of rival UND, it’s important to come out with a different mindset. But no matter whom you play in the conference it’s going to be a tough game,”

Despite the departure of two of the team’s leaders, Green said she is pleased with the improvement of the younger players.

“The underclassmen are getting invaluable experience and learning a lot of tough lessons,” Green said. “I can already see the strides of development from this year’s sophomores from their freshman year…as a team we’re not making the same mistakes twice, although we are making other mistakes.”