Soccer looking for more goals

The University of South Dakota women’s soccer team will be heading on its final road trip of the season this weekend as it takes on the IPFW Mastodons in Fort Wayne, Ind., Saturday at 7 p.m.

The Coyotes are coming off a shutout loss against No. 18 Denver Sunday. The loss was the fifth straight for the team and the fourth without having scored a goal.

Head coach Mandy Green said the team has been working hard to try and pass the ball around more in order to be able to score more goals.

“When we connect a lot of passes, we tend to score a lot more goals,” Green said. ”If we can create more opportunities to score a goal, then the goals will come.”

Junior Shannon Keller said while the losses are frustrating, the team is not letting it bring them down, and they will continue to try and get better as the season comes to a close.

“We have been working really hard on being able to create more goals for ourselves,” Keller said. “We want to be able to score goals to get wins.”

IPFW is currently 4-9-1, compared to the Coyotes’ 5-7-3 record. The Mastodons have scored just nine goals this season, while their opponents scored 26. The Coyotes have a smaller margin between goals and goals allowed this year, with 21 and 24, respectively.

The Coyotes also know the importance that their defensive skills play during a game. Junior goalkeeper Mackenzie Viktor said the team recognizes that if they do not play good defense, then they will not get a chance to score.

“We always work really hard on our defensive game during practice,” Viktor said. “If they have the ball and are scoring, then we don’t. So, we want to play good defense against them in order to keep the ball out of the net for them.”

Following the game at IPFW, the team will return home to take on Western Illinois and IUPUI before it will know if they qualify for conference play.