Testing IU Women's Soccer Schedule Begins Today Against Louisville
Indiana head women's soccer coach Amy Berbary wanted a tougher schedule in 2016 to test her club from wire-to-wire throughout the season.
Mission accomplished.
Of the Hoosiers' eight non-conference games before the Big Ten opener against Northwestern, six appeared in the NCAA Tournament last year. The first of those non-conference opponents, Louisville, will be in Bloomington tonight for a 7 p.m. match at Bill Armstrong Stadium to kick off the regular season.
"It's going to be great for us," Berbary said. "I think that was important to prepare us for the grueling schedule of the Big Ten."
Tonight's match renews a rivalry with Louisville that hasn't been rekindled since the programs last met in 1997. The Cardinals will be the first of many historically strong programs ahead of the Hoosiers in the coming weeks.
"People say this a lot in soccer, but sometimes when you play teams that aren't as good, you sometimes play down to their level," senior defender Veronica Ellis said. "So I'm hoping (the schedule) makes us kind of step up and have a test. And on top of that, it tests the team's mental strength that if we lose on a Friday, we need to try and come out of the weekend with points."
Berbary will have her hands full between finding a new starting goalkeeper, figuring out a way to revamp an offense that only scored 11 goals last season and working 12 different freshmen into the mix in her fourth season in Bloomington.
The latter has been one of the more exciting challenges for the coaching staff this preseason. The 2016 signing class was the first Berbary herself put together from start to finish.
She can already see a few of the newcomers seeing significant minutes early on, mentioning Chandra Davidson, Alison Jordan and Megan Scott all by name. Given the sheer amount of freshmen on the roster, Berbary might not have much choice but to pencil them into the lineup sheet.
"We're pretty pumped," she said. "These kids have been waiting around for two years to put an Indiana jersey on, so we're really excited about these kids."
A handful of the freshmen were brought in specifically to help with the Hoosiers' offense that struggled throughout last season, ranking last in the Big Ten. It wasn't that IU forwards weren't getting opportunities, Berbary said, it was that they weren't capitalizing on scoring threats in the final third.
The coaching staff, which includes new assistant Mike Regan joining Berbary and assisant Sergio Gonzalez, has worked specifically on building confidence and creativity in the box to net more goals in the run of play.
"I think it's honestly being more creative and a little bit more composed," senior defender Marissa Borschke said of the keys to the offense. "We work on not so much, 'Here's a pattern' necessarily, but what can we do when we have the ball with our back to goal? Or what can our midfield do when they have it wide? And give them different options so that in the game, it's not like, 'Oh, I only have this one pass, and if that's not on, I don't know what to do.'"
In that, Indiana hopes to find a solution to its recent scoring woes. Outside of that, Berbary said she expects to continue to rely on her defense to be the foundation for what drives the program's success yet again this season.
When it comes to a starting lineup for tonight, Berbary said Thursday afternoon that she still wasn't sure what it would look like. The goalkeeper, which will either be freshman Sarah L'Hommedieu or redshirt freshman Bristal Hadley-Mautino, is one position battle in particular that Berbary expected to come down to the wire.
Regardless of who she sends out first, she said to expect fluid changes throughout the season.
"I can honestly say this is the first year we're actually having debates," Berbary said. "With all the injuries that hit us last year, we had more plane tickets than players, so this has been fun. Playing 11-v-11, the scout team per se is really good."
The competitiveness in practice and a 2-1 exhibition win against Cincinnati are early signs that the Hoosiers will be able to improve on their 3-10-6 mark from a year ago.
But the truest test, the first one many, comes tonight against Louisville, a program that went 8-8-2 last season. With the Cardinals coming and 2015 officially in the rearview, Berbary is ready to see where her team goes next.
"We're going to look back in a couple of years and say last year is the best thing that ever happened to us," Berbary said. "And I know that's hard to comprehend, but heading into overtime seven times, getting one victory and not losing a single one of those just shows you the grit and determination we have in these kids.
"Now adding a little more athleticism, a little bit of hight—I think our average height went from 5-5 to 5-9 now—and a little bit more tactical awareness is just going to push us over that edge."