Following the women’s soccer team’s 3-1 loss against conference foe Murray State Sunday, Eastern head coach Summer Perala said this week’s practice would bring the team back to the basics of soccer.

“We told (the players) that we’ve got to start from scratch now because we have to work to push each other in training,” Perala said.

According to Perala, the reason for going back to basics was to ensure that the team is as competitive and physical as possible in order to deal with the conference.

“The rest of the games from here on out are going to be the same battle,” Perala said.

In the Murray State match, the Panthers surrendered all three goals within a span of 10 minutes, between the 17th and 27th minutes.

Eastern’s only goal came as a result of a penalty kick when senior midfielder Laura Ridolfi was pulled down in the Racers’ box by a defender.

Coach thinks team plays better from behind

Perala said after the loss to Murray State she thinks the team must like playing from behind, stating there’s more of a sense of urgency when they’re coming from behind.

Perala said there were numerous aspects of the game that were performed better when the team was behind on the scoreboard.

“The players pass with a purpose, move more off of the ball and get numbers in the box,” Perala said.

According to Perala, she and assistant coach Grant Williams have told the team many times that what they do when they’re behind is something they need to work on doing from the very beginning.

“For some reason we like to try to dig out of hole,” she said, “I don’t know why.”

In five of its nine combined wins and ties, the team has come from behind and in all of their losses, they haven’t been the first team to score. In fact, they’ve only scored two goals in their five losses.

Panthers could have better offensive stats

Senior midfielder Rachel Hamilton thinks her team isn’t raking up as many offensive stats as they should be.

“We’re dangerous because we’re fast and we need to show other teams what we got,” Hamilton said, “We could be putting up a lot better numbers.”

Eastern ranks in the bottom half of the conference in all major offensive categories except assists – they rank fourth.

Around the OVC

Last Friday turned out to be a rainy day for the Ohio Valley Conference. While Eastern’s game against UT Martin was postponed due to poor playing conditions, so were two other games.

In fact, three of the four scheduled games from that day were postponed. The only match resulted in a draw between Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State.

On Sunday, UT Martin, Tennessee Tech, SIUE, and Murray State all won their matches.

Eastern’s next game is 3:30 p.m. Friday at Lakeside Field against Tennessee Tech.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.

Freshman defender Kayla Doran falls off balance after a collision with an Austin Peay player during the match at Lakeside Field on Oct. 4.(Amir Prellberg/The Daily Eastern News)

(more…)