At one point during Idaho soccer’s season last fall, the back of the net became such a foreign place that during a string of six games, the team only netted three goals, losing five of the six games.
Ilya Pinchuk | Argonaut Junior goalkeeper Caroline Towles makes a save during practice Thursday on the SprinTurf. The Vandals' spring season continues with a double-header home stand against Washington State and Central Washington at 10 a.m. Sunday on the SprinTurf.
By the end of the season, the Vandals were a game away from playing in the WAC Championship game. Experimentation with a new formation might have been partly to thank for the offensive resurgence that got them there — an experimentation carried into the spring exhibition season.
“We’re still building on the fall, just building what we can do. With our new formation, it wasn’t something we brought in until the WAC Tournament,” midfielder Megan Lopez said.
The new formation is termed as a 4-3-3, which pushes more players up top in an attacking position. This is opposed to the 4-4-2 Idaho played the season before, which emphasized Idaho’s strength in possession and pushing the ball wide while attacking.
“We’ve had such depth in numbers, that allows to try a lot of different things,” coach Pete Showler said.
The change has paid dividends early for the Vandals in the spring season. They dominated in a 2-0 victory against Montana in the first match of the spring, constantly keeping the ball on Montana’s end of the field.
Against Gonzaga, while Idaho failed to find the back of the net, there were still a fair share of quality chances. Showler said his team could have scored three or four goals.
“It’s not about the results, it’s about the process,” he said. “I think you learn more from losing a game sometimes than winning the game. When you win the game you overlook some of the things that you sometimes take for granted.”
The changes include moving Erica Hart, who had played outside back and outside midfielder throughout her Idaho career, to forward. Hart put a header home for Idaho’s first goal of the spring season against Montana.
“I’ve talked to the coaches a little about getting forward. This spring we just wanted to try it out and see if forward was really a position that I’d exceed in. It’s been fun, hopefully I get to stick with it” Hart said.
Chelsea Small, the teams leading scorer last year, is asked to play the highest line of the three forwards, but said the goal is to move all of the attacking players around to create opportunities.
“I feel like we’re attacking a lot more which is something that in some games in the fall we didn’t do as well as we wanted to,” Small said. “… having more people up top will give me a better opportunity to get open.”
Despite Idaho getting shutout during the last match, Gonzaga associate coach Derek Pittman admits it wasn’t an easy task because of the new formation.
“Their overall team shape was a different form…we knew coming in today we had to be organized defensively, we talked about that a lot. Trying to limit Idaho’s space,” Pittman said. “They combined very well, they created a number of quality chances, that our keeper had to come up with some good saves. Idaho is a good team.”
There will be plenty of chances for Idaho to turn those chances into goals when it takes the pitch for two matches April 1 hosting Central Washington and Washington State in a double header that kicks off at 10 a.m.